


Only Mad About Art

by gisho



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: (not very) stealth crossover, Art Crime, Canon-Typical Violence, Comedy, Heist fic, Modern AU, Tarvek gets kidnapped in every universe, warning: non-consensual drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-03-23 11:08:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 83,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13786263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gisho/pseuds/gisho
Summary: Modern AU. Running the Wulfenbach Gallery was hard enough before his father ended up in hospital after a hit-and-run; the last thing Gil needs are complications. He gets them anyway, in the form of an old friend turned nemesis, an aspiring rocket scientist who for some reason wants to know his life story, and Agatha Clay's latest scheme - or rather, heist.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You'd think I'd finish one of my ongoing works first before I started another AU. You'd be wrong!

\--

##### Thursday, January 12, 15:45 GMT

"I can't believe none of those idiots got the plate," Dupree says. "I mean, what am I supposed to do, run around London stabbing everybody who drives a red Ford Fiesta?"

Gil spares a moment to be glad nobody got the plate. 

"It wasn't even on the cameras! What's the point of living in a goddamn surveillance state if you can't use it to find a guy you need to stab?"

"What? How did you get footage? The police havn't gotten footage yet."

"I asked," Dupree says, blinking. Gil hopes she meant she asked the clerk in the convenience store; the prospect of Dupree with unfettered access to public cameras is a terrifying one. "How long until we can see him? I need to yell at him for being too stupid to dive out of the way."

"He'll be out of surgery in an hour and a half." Gil crosses his arms. The peculiar combination of mortal terror and boredom is wearing on his nerves. "Can you sit still for an hour and a half or should we go wait in the pub?"

"They put pubs in hospitals now? Jeez, if they have that kind of money why does the NHS - Relax, kiddo, I was joking. Take a deep breath. You're going to sprain something."

There's a dent in the metal arm of the chair opposite, and Gil focuses on it and takes deep breaths as he slowly loosens his grip on the metal arms of the chair he's sitting in. Dupree telling him to calm down is a bad sign.

The clock flickers. 3:46.

"Anyway," Dupree goes on, "Klaus is going to be just fine. He's practically indestructable. Did you know he still has a piece of bullet in his shoulder from that time he pissed off the Rumbaba chieftain? It must mess up the x-rays something fierce."

"I knew that," Gil allows. "I didn't know _you_ knew that. Since when do you and Father talk about anything but work?"

"Huh? Ages and ages. He got real weird when you were at university." That's almost as long as Dupree has been working for them. Maybe Klaus is feeling his age. A pang of anxiety that he's being a neglectful son joins the mortal terror and boredom in Gil's head, probably because it spotted the nice grooves already worn in his brain by the thought of having to go to tomorrow's auction alone and either spend thousands of pounds on a second-rate piece they'll have to sell for over-the-sofa, or pass up a brilliant, revolutionary artwork that could have been theirs for a song. "You know what I hate about hospitals?" Dupree goes on. "The way they smell. You'd think it would be blood, but it's all these weird caustic cleaning chemicals. And plastic and despair. Don't you hate that?"

"Despair doesn't smell."

"You have _no romance in your soul._ Despair totally smells." Dupree pokes Gil in the shoulder. "So does fear. Relax. It'll take a lot more than a Ford Fiesta to take out your dad. They'd have to break out the polonium."

"I don't think he's annoyed the Russian government lately." Has he? That thought should dump a fresh wave of terror through Gil's limbic system, but apparently he's out of adrenaline; it just makes him twitch once. 

"Right. Who has he annoyed?"

"You think this was a _hit_?"

From somewhere under the pile of outdated magazines they put in here just in case anyone has the concentration to read while their friends and relatives are being operated on, Dupree whips out of a pad of paper. "You don't? Gimme." She snatches the good pen out of Gil's shirt pocket. "Let's work this backwards. We work out who might be mad enough at Klaus to make him dead, and then I go work out which ones could get a red Ford Fiesta and kill them."

With a sinking feeling of the sort that working with Dupree has made entirely too common, Gil notices the notepad is actually a doctor's prescription pad. "How far back? Because I really only know the last eight years worth. Since I started keeping accounts for the gallery. I know he got some powerful people in San Theodoros very angry before I was born, but I think most of them died in the Emerald Revolution and I don't actually have names for the ones who are still alive."

"That's okay, I can make Klaus talk later. Just tell me the gallery enemies. Head start." She clicks the pen open and grins like a shark.

Gil pinches the bridge of his nose; he can feel a headache forming. It's the smell, it has to be the smell; it reminds him of being a little kid again. How to do this? Reverse-chronologically, maybe. "Julius Strinbeck," he starts. "We said his Van Boucle was a nineteenth-century fake, he said he would sue, we said this wasn't America, he said we'd be sorry. But he drives a Mercedes."

"Well, _somebody's_ going to be sorry. Maybe he farmed it out." Dupree scribbles the name down. "What about what's-his-name with the animatronic monkeys and the Salvador Dali?"

\--

##### Thursday, January 12, 23:10

Outside are streetlights and traffic noise, but the inside of Rudolf Selnikov's house is dark and quiet behind its protective layer of hedges and brick wall. That suits Agatha just fine. She starts to hum as she works, feeling for the terminal screws. 

Selnikov trusts his security system. He went for the cheap safe. It's practically insulting

There's the phone jack; she ignores it. And there are the controls for the Ultra-safe bolt solenoid, which really doesn't live up to its name. Well, the solenoid itself may work quite well; Agatha's never needed to break one. It's so much easier to slip two pieces of wire with spade-terminal ends into place, loosen the screws not quite enough to break contact, slip in her spade ends, and tighten them again. Stubby screwdrivers, the crook's best friend. Difficult part done, she feels for the little plastic connector on the end of the battery, and yanks it loose. Now for the easy: one more wire, ends encased in ferrules, just touched to the two screws labeled 'BOLT' so obviously she can make it out by moonlight. 

Deep in the wall, something goes _thunk_.

"I'm in," she whispers. 

"Goot," comes the buzz through her earpiece. "I jest saw a cop car."

There's no point asking Maxim to drop the accent, although Agatha is about ninety percent certain it's affected. She pulls on the bit of decorative moulding, and Selnikov's bookcase rolls neatly away from the wall, bringing the vault door with it. A soft white glow suffuses the closet-sized space beyond, glimmering off the edges of the pile of canvases stacked against its back wall. 

There's just no helping some people. 

Agatha unzips her portfolio case, humming again. What she pulls out certainly _looks_ like not-Rembrandt-but-we-don't-know-who's _The Cambist_ , the same thoughtful look on the same bearded face examining the same gold coin. She leans it against the frame while she goes through Selnikov's - stack. Really, nobody who treats paintings like this should _have_ them, and she briefly contemplates the merits of hoisting he entire contents of his vault before getting ahold of herself. No. Subtlety. Awful though it feels to leave even an imitation _Cambist_ she did in acrylics last weekend shut up like this, it would feel much worse to get caught. 

There he is. She lifts the real _Cambist_ out - maybe it's her imagination, but he looks like he wants to punch someone in this version. Bad lighting, maybe, or the stress of living with Selnikov. 

A buzzing in her ear again. "Iz it dere? Not trying to rush you, but de cop car -"

"It's here. I just made the switch." 

"Gud."

"Four minutes."

Maxim, wisely, shuts up. Agatha slips the painting into her bag, nudges the bookshelf back into place, and begins undoing her adjustments to the alarm controls. They really don't look _that_ much like a thermostat.

Seventy-three seconds later, the plastic cover snaps back on. Agatha picks up her bag and heads downstairs. There will be a blip on the security system motion sensor logs, but nobody checks those. 

The rest is simple. Reset the alarm, out the patio doors, up the oak tree, balance on top the wall while she waits for Maxim to pull up with his van. Which is taking longer than it should. "Hey," she whispers. "Where are you?"

"Circling de block! I vas spooked!"

"Well, circle fast, I'm on the wall."

There's a burst of engine noise through her headphones, and Maxim says, "I stop for five seconds."

She'd yell at him, but there isn't time. The van rounds the corner, and Agatha drops onto the roof, throws herself flat, and grabs the luggage rack. With any luck she'll look like luggage from the street. "Go," she hisses, and Maxim guns it.

"You okay up dere?" he asks as he rounds the next corner at conspicuous speed. She should have brought Jorgi. 

"I'm clinging to the roof of a van with a priceless painting on my back and you're _speeding!_ Slow the _fuck down_ before I _fall off!_ "

He doesn't answer, but the van settles back to a respectable twenty-five. Agatha tightens her grip and breathes in slowly. Next job, she thinks, she's doing in broad daylight in a television repair van.

\--

##### Friday, January 13, 14:23

There's a certain smell to auction houses, somewhere between paint and perfume, that puts Violetta on edge. Mostly it's the perfume. She keeps wrinkling her nose in that way Tarvek claims makes her look like a rabbit, because Tarvek is an _ass_. Also, her feet hurt. Next time she wants to look taller she's bringing a _stepstool_.

She sneaks a glance around for Agatha, who at five foot eleven should be easy to spot, and finds her in front of a painting of some chinless aristocrat that Violetta probably should recognize from the auction catalogue, chatting to her green-haired classmate who Violetta shouldn't feel horribly jealous of because she and Agatha even admitting to knowing each other _at an art auction viewing_ would just be unbearably stupid. 

But there's no harm in sidling a little closer to get a look at the painting, and if she overhears then talking, no harm in that either. 

"It's always hard to tell, when a master had a studio," Agatha is saying. She must be explaining the attribution system; she's pointing at the catalogue. "People argue about the quality of brushwork and the exact hallmarks of someone's style - but there's no scientific proof. It got especially confusing with Rembrandt, because he did self-portraits, but he also had his students _copy_ the self-portraits for practice."

"So when it says Studio Of, that means it was probably a student."

"Exactly."

The classmate - Zeetha, her name was Zeetha - is frowning, arms crossed. "And when they say Attributed To?"

"That means they're weaseling to drive the price up. Attributions in catalogues are statements of opinion, not fact." Violetta can hear the air-quotes as Agatha puts on her best snooty accent. She may look the part of a Collector right now, in a green silk gown and tailored jacket, but Agatha has always thought art should be _appreciated_ , not appraised. It's enough to make Violetta feel guilty. Agatha goes on, "Which isn't to say most dealers don't try. Some of them get downright snippy."

There's a tall man in desperate need of a comb off to one side, staring at Agatha and Zeetha. He has a glass and is letting it dangle; if there were any drink left it would be dribbling all over the floor. Twit. She sidles over to look at the rather dull portrait of some lady in a lace cap he's ignoring. Close up it has so much craquelure it looks like the Portrait of Dorian Gray, and the lady's expression looks like grim resignation. Violetta twitches her lips in sympathy.

Next to it is the picture she came to bid up: a red chalk sketch of a woman playing the viol da gamba, smiling in satisfaction at her own artistry. The woman looks oddly like Grandmother. She nudges the twit, who is still staring at - Zeetha. Specifically Zeetha. What's so interesting about Zeetha? She's not the only person in town with green hair. "Hey," Violetta says. "What do you think of this one? I lost my catalogue."

He jerks in surprise. "Huh? Lot Thirty-seven? Very expressive, should go for twice the estimate, if Fabritus ever touched the paper I'll eat my hat." Hah. "What's _she_ doing here?"

Violetta follows his gaze as if she has no idea where he was looking. "With the green hair? Who's that?"

"Zeetha Reina!" Messy Hair looks shocked. "Best striker in San Theodoros? Star of the national team for six years? Retired last summer and dropped off the face of the earth? You don't follow football, do you?" 

She does not, and neither could she pick out San Theodoros on a map, and Violetta is about to say so when the object of his attention starts striding toward them, with a sudden bright grin.

Time to make her getaway. She's put in an appearance at the viewing, her appearance at the auction should go completely unremarked, and if worst comes to worst and Violetta wins the thing, Tarvek has promised to eat the buyer's premium _and_ buy her dinner at Le Poisson Candi to compensate her for the trouble. But most people are idiots, and if the catalogue says Fabritus the idea that it was done last August in her cousin's flat in a haze of claret won't even cross their minds.

\--

One of the more mystifying events of Gil's youth had happened when he was almost sixteen, and he and his father were - not fighting, exactly, but alternating stilted conversations and awkward silences with avoiding each other completely. Gil been lurking in his room doing absent-minded arthropod sketches. His father knocked, and announced, "Pack for a week. Our plane leaves in three hours." Not until they were at the airport did Klaus admit they were going to Faro, and not until they were landing in Portugal did he clarify that they were there to watch the Algarve Cup.

Gil, whose fondness for football and specifically for the San Theodorian women's team was one of the things they were carefully not fighting about, had been too surprised to get a sentence out. 

But there they were; Gil whooped and cheered and Klaus sat in stoic silence through four games, during which the San Theodorian team scored five goals and landed in seventh place. Three of those goals were Zeetha Reina's. Even from the distance of up in the stands it struck Gil how intense she looked, like the ball was a theorem she was trying to disprove.

She's looking at him now the same way, and Gil swallows and tries not to gibber. "Hello?"

Zeetha bursts into a grin. "Hello! Have we met?"

"No, but I saw you in a tournament once. Uh. Sorry for staring." The blonde woman she was talking to has sidled over, grinning. Gil is glad all this is happening at low enough volume to vanish in the murmur of conversation.  
"You're Zeetha Reina, right?"

"I am! Who are you?"

"Gilgamesh Wulfenbach. Like the Wulfenbach Gallery," he adds, as if she cares. "My father owns it."

"Reeeeally." Impossibly, her grin sharpens. 

Her friend puts in, "I'm Agatha. We're just here to look at the pretty pictures. You buying?"

"Well, I hope so, there's a Valpolicella sketch that matches two we picked up last year, and a preparatory study for one of Poussin's allegories, and now that I've had a good look I think that Unknown Portrait is actually Blu - I'm sorry, this is probably very boring."

"No, no, we're here to learn." Agatha brandishes her catalogue. "Go on, show off a bit. Impress your crush."

Gil feels his face go an interesting shade of red. "She is not my - I don't - I just wondered what happened to you! Everyone wondered!"

Zeetha shrugs. "I decided astronomics was more interesting than football."

"We can give you the whole rant later," Agatha informs him, her grin matching Zeetha's. "We tag-team. Tell you what, why don't you show us around and then we'll all go to tea?"

\--

##### Friday, January 13, 16:22

Agatha spears another forkful of cake and hides her smile behind her napkin. She's seen enough people go glassy-eyed at Zeetha's sales pitch, but Gil, miraculously enough, is following along. He answered her bit about San Theodoros's greatest natural resource being its nearness to the equator, which Zeetha usually has to demonstrate by spinning a bowl on her fingers, with a bright "Of course!" that cut five minutes off the rant. Now he's wistfully asking Zeetha how soon they plan to break ground on the spaceport.

"Could be a decade," Zeetha tells him. "We don't even have a site picked out, and, well, there's politics. Mother will probably have to pay a lot of bribes. I should explain, my mother is -"

"Minister of the Interior. I know."

"And how do you know so much about me, Mister Wulfenbach?" Zeetha raises an eyebrow. 

"Uh. I read your Wikipedia page." Gil blushes. "I was actually born in San Theodoros, is the thing. I've never been there since I was a baby, but ..."

Zeetha raises both eyebrows. "There has to be a story there."

"Not much of one." He shrugs. "I had some kind of chronic disease, so my father moved us to London so it could get treated. Spent a lot of time in hospital. All better now. I guess he didn't want to go back." Gil is absently spinning his fork between his fingers as he talks, a blatantly obvious nervous habit. Luckily there's no cake left on it. "My life's not really that interesting. I work a lot, I paint a little."

Agatha breaks in, "You must really love art, though. You knew so much about the sketches."

His face lights up again with the delight of an expert about to expound on his area of expertise. It's a look Agatha knows well, including from the mirror. 

\--

##### Friday, January 13, 23:36

"You have it all figured out," Gil tells Zoing, and taps the aquarium glass with his empty pint glass. Zoing waggles his antennae.

Another pint glass slides into his line of sight, gripped by a teal-fingernailed hand. Gil tries to take it with a mumble of thanks. The hand mysteriously fails to let go. "Hyu's in a bad way if hyu's telling your troubles to de lobster."

"Can't I be worried about Father?"

"Of cawze. But hyu is not the only one in de world. Not even in diz room." Gkika settles onto the next stool with all the inevitability of a lava flow. "Hyu papa iz a friend ov mine since before hyu vas born. Mebbe since before hyu lobster friend vaz born. Hard to tell vit lobsters."

Gil half-shrugs. He's read that most supermarket lobsters are between five and seven years old, so Zoing is probably younger than Gil is, but he could just have been a runt. "Father is going to be fine," he tells Gkika. "I know that. He's just ..."

"Gettink old?"

"Not as immortal as he thinks he is?" Gil grimaces. 

Gkika grins, and shoves the pint at Gil. She's got a glass of her own in the other hand - as is traditional for Gkika, it's a soft amber that probably means whiskey-and-soda, but garnished with cherries on a stick. At least it's not one of Theo's. "He did shtupid stuff all de time ven he vaz young. Iz amazing none uv it killed him yet."

"He doesn't know how to give up." Gil takes a gulp of ale. "Tries to do everything himself."

"He - Hwat iz it de kids say? He haz no chill."

"Has no sense of proportion."

"Vunce he treatened de Commandant uv de Kurvi-Tasch Guards vit a handgun for interrupting a meetink."

"He actually _did_ get a mafioso arrested on fraud charges for insulting me. Well, you remember that, he came here and grumbled about it. For hours."

"Ho yez. Und dat mess vit de Piranesi prints. Klaus tinks no vun elze knows how to run ennyting."

Gil's head hits the bar with a thump. "He's going to try to get right back to work as soon as the painkillers wear off," he moans. "He'll complain about everything and _insist_ on meeting clients in person and probably get in a fistfight with the Sotheby's appraiser." 

"Tch," says Gkika, and then, "No he von't. I hev un idea."

"Idea?"

"Sure. Inztead uv takink him home, you bring him here." She raises her glass. "I look after him, und keep him busy redesigning our menus or summting like dat, he iz completely out of hyu hair." She pats Gil on the shoulder. "Eezy-peasy."

Gil blinks at the aquarium. "I don't know if he'd agree to that."

"Who says hyu asks him? Jest turn up here. Hy iz happy to see him, iz he going to run off before he haz a drink? Hy ken be persuazive. Und hyu hez a gallery to run."

And Gkika has a pub to run, but she also has twelve employees. Gil looks around. At this hour Mamma's is still busy, in the understated way of a place that caters to people who don't want trouble. The tourist crowd have mostly gone to bed. A waitress in an epauletted jacket is handing off a basket of chips to two sweatshirted stragglers. Another is giving a just-abandoned rustic wooden table a desultory polish. The effect is almost homey, by candlelight. Enough noise and bustle to give his father something to complain about even from the upstairs flat, not enough to actually slow his recovery. Gil offers, "Deal. Thank you _so much._ "

"Iz my pleasure." Gkika offers her glass, and Gil hastily clinks it in a toast. "Hy can nag him abot dat Rembrandt print he promised me."

"If he finds one, let me check it," Gil offers. "There are some very good fakes floating around. There was a sketch at the auction I'm sure wasn't actually a Fabritus, but someone thought it was and bought it for seventeen thousand pounds. Telephone bid. I hope they're just wrong and not going to get a nasty surprise when they open the package. But it was good enough to fool the appraisers. Maybe it was a Hebborn, there are still a lot of them out there -" He's babbling again. Nerves. Gil takes a deep breath and says, "We'll keep looking for you."

"Iz no rush. Vaz Klaus's idea." Gkika pats his shoulder again. "Iz hyu staying late? Dere's a game downstairs."

He really should go home and sleep. But the flat is big and empty without his father there, and he'd probably be up all night worrying anyway, and if he's going to be up all night he might as well be up all night in Gkika's basement, listening to a bunch of Syldavian significant-pause-businessmen argue over the rules of whatever card game one of them has invented this month, because poker is too psychological and cribbage is too inexplicable, and thinking about other people's problems. Maybe he'll even make a sale. It won't be the first time Gil's gotten business out of Game Night. 

\--

##### Sunday, January 15th, 02:20

The click of the opening door is very loud.

Agatha instinctively stops breathing. This is the trouble with doing a job on thirty hours notice: no time for reconnaissance. 

There's a series of beeps - someone turning off the security system, hopefully someone too tired to notice it was already off, or who's cursing themselves for carelessness. Agatha takes advantage of the noise of footsteps to walk backwards three strides and press herself against the wall, behind the swing of the door. She hurriedly reaches over to flick off the lightswitch. Who turns up to work at an art dealership at two in the morning? Will they stick to the office where all the computers are and leave her be, or come in to admire their stash? 

A tense fifty seconds later, the door creaks open. The light flicks on, and Gilgamesh Wulfenbach slams the door behind him. He's tense, shoulders almost vibrating; there's a clipboard clutched in his left hand. He walks over to - the giant scanner. Huh. The clipboard goes on the bed. He punches buttons like he's trying to poke holes in them. The scanner starts to make a nervous whir as its bridge rolls over the clipboard, and Gil sighs heavily and turns around.

By considerable effort of will, Agatha doesn't scream.

Gil doesn't scream either, although it would be reasonable to. He makes a little adorable noise like a deflating balloon, and then, amazingly, he raises his hands. "Please don't shoot," he says.

Agatha feels compelled to point out, "I don't have a gun."

"Oh. Right." Gil blinks a few times. "Sorry. I'm pretty tired. Is this a robbery?"

"It's not even a burglary," Agatha tells him. What would the point be in lying? He knows her name, he knows she's at university with Zeetha. "I just wanted to get a good look at that Unknown Portrait you picked up at the auction Friday."

She wasn't _at_ the auction, but Gil's apparently too tired to wonder who her informant was. He blinks a few times. "The Bludtharst? Oh. I can show you, it's not a secret. Why?"

That's a little trickier. Agatha turns it over in her head looking for the least revealing answer, but there really isn't one is there? 

Unless -

Unless she brings him in on it. The new plan is spread across her mind like a sudden crashing power chord. She can work out the details as she goes, the important thing right now is to be as confident and convincing as possible. Luckily Agatha's good at that. 

"I think you're right, it's a Bludtharst," she opens. "Did you get a look at the back of the sheet, though?"

"Of course I did. Very preliminary landscape sketch with a castle that would probably fall down if anyone tried to build it. That's why I think it's Bludtharst, he was better at capprici than portraits."

"Like he was working out a composition, right?" Agatha smiles encouragingly. "There was a hullabaloo a few decades back. Rumours about a lost Bludtharst painting believed destroyed in the nineteenth century -"

"- that vanished into a private collection." Agatha can see as the same conclusion she came to spreads across Gil's face. "The Castle at Heliotropolis. You think it really existed? His diary only said he was contemplating it -"

"But you just bought the preparatory sketch."

"It could be. The subject fits. We can't tell for sure."

Agatha leans forwards and smirks. Really, he was caught as soon as he stopped to chat instead of calling 999. "How much do you think you could sell Bludtharst's _Castle at Heliotropolis_ for, if it fell into your hands?" 

She goes over to the file drawers while he thinks it over. The auction buys are still sitting on top, wrapped in brown paper. Agatha starts to unfold it as Gil says, "To the right buyer - five hundred thousand? Privately, not at auction, things get weird at auctions. Why, do you have a lead on it?"

"Better. I know it doesn't exist."

"Then it can't be sold."

"Let me rephrase that." Agatha holds up the sketch. It's an architecturally improbable castle, and it looms over a spread-out sequence of roofs and streets and distant hills in that charmingly ominous way Bludtharst was so brilliant at; the sketch may be hasty and loose but the layout is perfect. "It doesn't exist _yet_ , but I could change that. I know a man."

"A man who owns a time machine? It's a _lost work_ -"

"A man," Agatha informs him, "whose name isn't Fabritus either." Gil's hands are clenched, but the look on his face is more of fascination than concern. The scanner has finished its grinding work; he doesn't seem to have noticed. "And who can work from this sketch, if I get a good picture of it. Does that thing do photocopies?"

"I can send the output straight to the office printer." Gil snatches up the clipboard and clutches it to his chest like he's trying to hide something. "What happens if I say no? If I don't want to risk the gallery's reputation like that?"

"Then I take the copy away and we never have to see each other again." It's brilliant how he's talking himself into it. The idea of going to the authorities has slipped completely away. Agatha gently sets the sketch landscape-up on the scanner bed, with the reverence due a three-century-old artwork, and gestures at Gil to start punching buttons. 

He does, looking almost hypnotized. A true connoisseur. She knew it.

The scanner makes a grinding noise.

"It wouldn't be that much of a risk," Gil eventually says to himself, still clutching the clipboard. "It would only get forensic tests if they turned around and sent it to auction right away, at one of the major houses. But what if they did?"

"Ah," Agatha says. "That's where I come in." This is her favorite part of the plan.

\--


	2. Chapter 2

##### Friday, January 20th, 10:33 

"Nice, isn't it?"

It's so nice Violetta didn't notice anyone walking up behind her, and her heartbeat is already doing unreasonable things before she catches the reflected green on the frame. Oh. Zeetha. Well, it's not like anyone would have jumped her in the showroom of the Wulfenbach Gallery. "That's kind of an understatement," she points out. 

"How so?" Zeetha is looking quizzically at her as she steps into Violetta's proper line of sight. She's dressed in jeans and a t-shirt again - today's reads _Strikers do it to the nines_ \- but so is Violetta, and they're the only ones here, so is doesn't seem out of place even in the rarefied showroom air.

"Probably worth a quarter-million pounds. More than a house. Well, a house outside London." She points at the discreet little label underneath it. "Valpolicella's fashionable right now. They must have a hell of a security system to leave it out here where anyone could walk in off the street. That, or they're idiots."

"Probably Option A." Zeetha tilts her head. "I like it, though. He looks so proud of his vineyard. That is the portrait of a contented man."

"He should be. He was rich enough to get Valpolicella to do his portrait."

Zeeths concedes the point with a chuckle. "Have we met? You look familiar."

To buy time while she decides whether to admit it, Violetta looks around. It's a nice space, with big windows to light up the artwork, and the tile floor and plain benches it look more like a museum than a dealership. She squints at the ceiling as if trying to remember.

She's still debating when Zeetha bursts out, "I know! You're Agatha's girlfriend! She showed me a picture. Of the two of you outside the Getty."

It wouldn't help to wince. "You know Agatha?" she manages instead, 

"Oh, yeah." Apparently Zeetha is one of those people who can't stand still and talk simultaneously; she starts to wander over to the bench under the row of studies for _Portrait of a Lady in Green_ , and Violetta trails her automatically by some sort of charismatic magnetism. "We have two physics classes together. She's been really helpful - I mean, I'm four years behind, it's not like that matters much at university, but it feels like a lot, you know?" She half-shrugs. "Are you an artist too?"

"No." Absurdly, Violetta starts blushing. "I do a little photography, that's all."

"That's still something. Takes an eye." 

How does she keep getting in these conversations? Violetta smiles desperately before Zeetha can ask to see her photos, in the - correct - assumption she keeps them on her phone. "So, are you just an art lover, or are you looking for something to spruce up your flat?"

"Oh, it's a funny story. Agatha took me to an auction viewing last week, said it'd be fun, and we met the guy who runs this place. He was a real sweetheart. So I wanted to see it for myself."

 _Sweetheart_ is not an adjective Violetta had ever expected to hear applied to Klaus Wulfenbach, and it takes her a few horrified seconds to work out that it must mean the twit with the messy hair, who from Agatha's report is his son. Gil, the name was. "Oh. Makes sense."

"How about you? Just browsing?" 

"I couldn't afford any of this," Violetta admits. "Maybe a print by someone nobody's ever heard of, the kind they wouldn't bother hanging up for everyone to drool over. If I want beautiful things I just have to ask Agatha." Or her cousin, who's a little better at looking exactly like an Old Master even if he doesn't have the _élan vital_ of Agatha's not-quite-Impressionism, but that comes with its own set of headaches.

\--

##### Friday, January 20th, 10:35

The banging on the door is loud enough to wake Tarvek from a sound sleep. He wastes a few bleary seconds trying to orient himself, blinking stupidly at the joint of wall and ceiling opposite. Television, Storm on the Sea of Galilee, bookcase, wadded-up coat. Why is the rug purple? Oh, right, because he fell asleep on the sofa again. 

The second round of percussion has vocal accompaniment: "This is the police! Open up!"

What a splendid morning this is turning out to be.

He manages to yell, "On my way!" as he makes a somewhat less than dignified dismount from the sofa, and hastily checks to make sure his shirt is buttoned up and his hair isn't actually sticking up from his head. His glasses are a smudged mess, but there's nothing to be done about that. At least the fuzzy slippers stand a chance of making him look harmless. 

Crowded outside his door are three uniformed policemen and one suited detective, looking no more happy to be awake at this hour than he is, although they're probably more used to it. "Good morning," he manages. "What seems to be the matter?"

"Well," the detective tells him, in the sort of brusque businesslike voice that suggests she's immune to charm, "we received a tip that you may have stolen property concealed here. Mind if we take a look around?"

Tarvek decides to go for an air of innocent, half-asleep befuddlement, which has the advantage of being real. He'd never be stupid enough to keep contraband _in his flat_. "Feel free," he says with all the dignity he can muster. "Would you like some tea?"

The detective trails him into the kitchen, and leans against the counter and does awful-weather-we're-having banter while he puts the kettle on, yawning conspicuously. Watching to make sure he doesn't dispose of any evidence, no doubt. He opens several cupboards and stares into each one in turn, before getting to the one with tea and exclaiming, "Ahah. Found it."

"Having a little trouble?" The detective raises her eyebrows. 

"Should've made you look, since you're looking for something. What are you looking for, anyway?" His mugs are behind the first door he opens, and he pulls two down and stands there with them in his hands, blinking. The officers are making noise in his front room; he hopes they're not making too much of a mess.

 

The confused act works; he can see the detective relax a little as she takes the mugs from his hands. "Stolen artwork. Three pieces removed from a museum several decades ago. Ring any bells?"

Oh, this is brilliant, what idiot set this up? Tarvek lets his jaw drop. "Is this about the Rembrandt?" he demands. "Because, one, that's a copy I did myself, two, it's in _plain sight_ in my _front room_. Storm on the Sea of Galilee is only the most famous stolen painting in history. I assure you," okay, he's getting too firm for someone confused and half-asleep but this is important, "it's in a bank vault somewhere, or a climate-controlled safe in some absurdly wealthy mafioso's mansion in the Caribbean. Not in plain sight in a flat in London. If it's traded hands it's for a few million pounds. Do I look like I have a few million pounds?"

"Well, sir, your last name is Sturmvoraus."

"I'm the black sheep of the family." He does a rueful little smile.

"And they cast you out without a shilling? This place looks nice enough." The detective tilts her head. She hasn't confirmed or denied that this is anything to do with the Rembrandt. Clever. "Hush money? Soul-crushing banking job?"

There's a crash, and they wince simultaneously. Tarvek adds a heartfelt groan. "Bookcase," he says, and hurries out into the front room.

Sure enough, the bookcase is flat on the floor. One of the uniformed officers is looking sheepish, one disgruntled. The third, with a little more presence of mind, is examining the flat pieces that were concealed behind the bookcase, lifting them to the light one by one. Well, they were there to be found, and the carpet nails left sticking up were there so anyone who tried nosing around would have precisely this problem. Tarvek can't help but glare, regardless. "Was that strictly necessary?"

"Well," drawls the bright spark, "we are searching the place." He lifts up the canvas he was examining, which does bear a certain resemblance to Andronicus's famous lost battle scene, except the the strategic addition of a few quad-leg mecha in place of horses, musketeers aiming elaborate shoulder-mounted death rays at the enemy, and a vast zeppelin almost hidden by clouds above the hill. "Nice work on the Star Wars piece, though. What are all the copper plates for?"

He can relax a little, Tarvek decides; they're clearly thinking their tip-off was wrong. "Experimental. Some of the Dutch Masters worked on copper plates to give this - glow to the finished work. There's a cityscape I did on copper in the other room, it's in the box in the closet, I'm sure you'll find it eventually. Since you're being so thorough."

"Just doing our jobs, sir," says the disgruntled officer. 

That they are, and they must have gotten information from someone they trusted quite a lot to bother turning up. Tarvek wonders who. Someone who could plausibly claim to have been in his apartment, as well, unless it was only someone a regular police informant would risk their reputation to do favors for. Not much overlap, either way. Someone who only wants to annoy him, or someone who genuinely thinks he's stupid enough to keep contraband in his flat. This is the kind of petty harassment he'd expect from his cousins, not any of the Men of Business he does business with. 

Damn. He's going to have to ask Violetta for another favor.  
\--

##### Saturday, January 21th, 05:37 

It's dark, and the only noises are the splat of rain against asphalt, the distant hum of traffic, and the irregular, distinctive rustling of a tarpaulin. Between the night and the rain, it's hard to make out more of the shape rounding the corner than, well, its shape: two tall points and a bluish lump between them. 

It pauses under the dim ghost-advertisement for the Ladyfair Laundry, huddling close to the brick wall. 

"Remind me why we couldn't hire a bloody van and have done," the shorter point announces. It moves just enough to pull away from the lump, and in this light the blue center and grey points are distinguishable. 

The other point declares, in a voice of  
strained patience, "The idea is not to be traceable."

"Right, because nobody will notice us carrying all this shite on the train."

"Nobody who'll tell anyone who matters. Shut up and push."

The awkward shape staggers onward.

Ten minutes later, Violetta shoves her hand-truck piled high with her cousin's assortment of random crap that he keeps in his studio - blank panels, sunlight floor lamp, folding easel, random painting of a boy with a stuffed mammoth - onto a District line train, cursing under her breath. Her idiot cousin follows with the rolling cart - of course he takes the easy one, and of course he gets it over the gap, no trouble at all - with the blue tarpaulin piled on top. "See?" he says, waving at the half-empty car. "Nobody gets on the train at five in morning unless they're working or still drunk. It'll be fine."

"You owe me." She glares at a young man with an undercut and a lime jacket that clashes with his skin, presumably a denizen of the _still drunk_ category, until he quails and looks away. 

The worst of it, the absolute worst, is that this will probably take three trips.

"I can't believe you're moving into a Brutalist building," she tells him. "I've heard your rants."

Tarvek shrugs, in that maddening virtue-of-necessity way. "They had a space open," he says. "Besides, as long as I'm working inside it I don't have to look at it."

\--

##### Sunday, January 22nd, 13:12

Gil has no idea why he snuck out like a grounded teenager, since: he's almost twenty-two, his father isn't even home - still safely grumbling on Gkika's guest bed - and if his father were home, he wouldn't have complained. Vague as he was about personal history, Klaus hadn't discouraged Gil's interest in San Theodoros, which he was, after all, a citizen by technicality.

To be specific, he'd once said, "You might as well know, you'll be safe there if anything happens to me," then declined to clarify what might happen.

But the distant sense of unease sticks around. Gil gets into the taxi three damp and unnecessary blocks from home, and starts to tell the driver to be sure they weren't followed before he catches himself. He converts the instructions on the fly to an unconvincing coughing fit, turns up the collar of his coat, and fumes sullenly all the way to the museum. Why exactly is he acting like he's in a bad spy movie?

Maybe because he'd agreed to help out with a blatant fraud to sell a forged Bludtharst painting that will, if he plays it right, leave him with enough money to buy Gkika that Rembrandt she wants so badly. All the anxiety has to go somewhere. He's not going to back out, though. _Fate_ is too unscientific a term, but meeting Agatha felt - inevitable. Like they'd only been waiting to run into each other to start working on their little collaborative performance. 

At first Gil had barely noticed her, caught up in the confusion of Zeetha Reina turning from a tiny figure on a screen surrounded by chants of "Goooooaaaaaal!" into a flesh-and-blood person, able and willing to split a Quadruple Chocolate Mousse Volcano with him. 

And who he's now meeting for something approximately date-shaped.

Which is probably another reason Gil is so on edge, now that he thinks about it. 

One more thing to not fight with his father about. Klaus had been so carefully accepting, making a point of saying he'd love to meet any girl _or boy_ who caught his son's eye, leaving copies of assorted Lambda Award nominees lying around the flat and commenting, sounding only as awkward as he sounded about everything that wasn't art or business, how nice it was that they had happy endings. It was a reasonable enough assumption, given that Gil had never shown any interest in girls. It was the same assumption Gil himself had defaulted to, until a failed experiment in that direction had led him to the only slightly bitter conclusion that he just wasn't meant for romance. Only slightly bitter, because he'd seen the way his father's face went flat and cold whenever Gil asked questions about his mother. 

Klaus has been widowed for twenty years now. The idea of dating again is apparently still unthinkable for him, despite his intermittent efforts to introduce Gil to the daughters - or sons - of people he knows. 

Gil will just have to tell his father he'd spent a nice afternoon at the British Museum, and not mention that he wasn't alone. 

He's forgotten his umbrella, of course, and by the time he gets inside his hair is sticking to his skull. But, amazingly enough, the rain seems to have kept people home. He can't remember the last time he saw the museum so deserted. 

Including of Zeetha. Huh.

There's a tap on his shoulder, and he whirls around. How did he not _notice_ someone walking up behind him? His nerves must be completely shot. But luckily the guy isn't doing anything but grinning at Gil - his hair is long and purple and his trousers are leather, but for all that he has a friendly face. "Hullo!" he says. "Gilgamesh, right? Miz Zeetha told me to vait for hyu."

"Oh. Er. Who are hy - you?" 

"Maxim." The grin grows. Does he just have very pointy canines like Zeetha does, or did he have his teeth sharpened?

"Friend of hers?" He wants to say, Boyfriend? The only thing more awkward than unnecessarily sneaking out to meet someone would be if he'd managed to invite himself to be third wheel on someone else's date in the process.

But Maxim says, "Friend uv a friend. Und I like exotic veaponry, yez? But she hez gone off to admire de Elgin Marbles und left me here all alone."

When they catch up to Zeetha, she's actually admiring the column from the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos, eyes gleaming like someone contemplating a daring museum heist. She gives it up easily enough, and leads the tromp to the tiny Arumbaya exhibit upstairs in room 69A next to the souvenirs of Greek and Roman Life with equal intensity. "Let's see if they bothered with a replica idol," she says as they dash up the stairs. "I swear that's the only thing about the Arumbaya anyone remembers. That damn idol with the giant diamond."

"I don't think most people have even heard of the Arumbaya," Gil points out. "Um. Why do you care? You don't have Arumbaya blood, do you?"

"What, it didn't say on my Wikipedia page?" 

Zeetha's grinning now, so Gil is almost certain that's a joke. He still blushes. It's not stalking to read someone's Wikipedia page, dammit. "Birthday the same as mine, father unknown, and your mother was from that tribe that was still maintaining the jungle pyramids. The rest was all gushing over your football career."

"Good. Because I don't have Arumbaya blood. But they're perfectly nice people who just want to be left alone, mostly, and it would be nice if the exhibit got that right."

Maxim puts in, "I tot dey went after trespassers vit poison blowpipes."

"Not anymore."

"Oh."

"They have shotguns now." Zeetha slams to a stop, so fast Gil and Maxim, crowding into the doorway behind her, almost slam right into her. "Do you want me to do the Native Guide routine, or just wander around aimlessly?"

"Go on, tell uz everyting hyu know." Maxim raises his eyebrows. 

"I don't know that much. I'm not an anthropologist either." Zeetha crosses her arms. It makes the light gleam off her bare biceps. Is she doing that on purpose? "I've gone boating down the Coliflor a couple times."

Gil offers, "That makes you the relative expert. I've never even been boating on the Thames."

"I have," Maxim says. "I ken tell hyu all about de strange tribes uv Oxford und their rituals." What exactly _is_ his accent? It's not Syldavian, it's not Russian, and Gil doesn't want to make himself look clueless by asking outright. "Dey have un exhibit on dat?"

"Roman Britain, southeast on this level," Gil says before he can stop himself. Well, might as well go all in. "And the rest of the east wall is all European history, we can do that next. There's some brilliant stuff in the horological collection. An experimental clock with a rolling-ball escapement - doesn't keep very good time, but it's fun to watch. Um."

Zeetha beams at him. "Come here often?"

Gil decides to shut up. If he doesn't say anything, he can't say anything stupid.

\--

##### Sunday, January 22, 21:04

Violetta's cousin glares at them over the filet de sole, arms crossed. "This had _better_ be good. I don't break out the creme brulee for just anyone."

"It's brilliant," Violetta assures him. "It's the opportunity of a lifetime. Gimme." She grabs the wine bottle out of his hand, because this really is a good plan and it deserves a toast. "Agatha, show him, this idiot never believes me."

Agatha pinches the bridge of her nose and makes an adorable little pinched disappointed face. "It's also a challenge," she points out. "We're asking for months of work with no guarantees."

"I thought you said you had the guy hook, line, and sinker."

"Yes. Now he has to get some rich idiot just as hard."

There aren't any candles lit - this is a business dinner and Tarvek has opinions about the line between business and pleasure - but the lights are turned down, just enough to make Tarvek's mess of a kitchen look like somewhere exotic and strange. The juicer could be the control valve to some massive hidden piece of machinery; the pointless fancy coffeemaker's little red and green lights gleam like the eyes of something she'll have to stab if it gets any closer. Her cousin leans back, with the smug little smile of someone who has things right where he wants them. "I might know some rich idiots," he offers. "Who am I this time?"

"Bludtharst." Agatha has the photocopy out and her plate shoved aside; she rolls it open with a flick of her wrists. "Think you could make a plausible painting from this?"

His eyes light up, just like Agatha's. Violetta decides for at least the four hundredth time she'll never understand artists, and applies herself to the filet de sole while they stare in mutual rapture at the copy of Bludtharst's scribble.

Eventually Tarvek says, "Where did you get this?"

"From the dealer who bought it at the Old Master portrait auction. Who I have, yes, hook line and sinker. He'll provide the provenance if we provide the painting. How soon do you think it could be ready?"

"Mmm." Tarvek frowns into the distance. "Has he given anyone a size yet?"

"Nothing."

"Good, that spares hunting for a panel. What else does our potential rich idiot know?"

Agatha throws up her hands. "It's _Castle at Heliotropolis_. You heard all the same rumours I did. Just don't get too fancy with the brickwork - I have to make a convincing copy."

"Ah, the shell game again?" Tarvek smirks. "That should be a lovely piece of theatre, with a legitimate dealer on board."

"Especially if we make it nice and dramatic. Romantic." Agatha sighs in delight. 

"With blue undertones."

Violetta has gotten the wine poured by now, since apparently she's the only one who remembers dinner is meant to happen at some point in the evening. Agatha and Tarvek are plunging deep in an artistic discussion, considering whether to bother with staffage or leave the town ominously empty, what to do with the weather. All those tedious things that nobody will give a damn about who's willing to drop six figures on a Bludtharst of questionable provenance. Artists! But apparently it matters to them, because in short order Agatha's produced a blue pen and a sheet of graph paper, and they're making frenetic sketches.

She shoves their plates on top the paper they're drawing on in a bid to get their attention. It works; they start guiltily and there's a certain amount of embarrassed coughing. Why exactly does Violetta put up with these people? "Business," she informs them. "It'll be beautiful, it'll be impeccable, it'll get you loads of money which you will split _how_?"

Tarvek tilts his head. "Agatha, did you promise the dealer anything?"

"I said I'd have to talk to you first. But he is staking a lot on your pulling off a perfect imitation." Agatha doesn't seem worried; she stabs at her fish with a friendly smile. 

"Mmm. Thirty-thirty-thirty-ten, then? Keep it simple."

Violetta blinks. "Who's the ten?"

"Why, you are." Her cousin grins, "Agent's fee, plus a little appreciation for your services as acquirer of materials and research assistant."

"Minder. You mean minder." She would let her head thump to the table, except her plate is in the way and she doesn't want to get lemon butter sauce all over her hair. "I know how you get when you're working."

"Also where my studio is," Tarvek says, bland unapologetic. "And how I take my coffee."

Agatha reaches over and squeezes Violetta's hand. "Sorry." She doesn't sound very sorry either. "This is what you get for hanging around with artists."

\--

##### Sunday, January 22, 22:57

Gil is scribbling furiously on his tablet when the phone starts to buzz, and he almost fumbles it to the floor before can can transform the motion to a flip and a bounce. "Hello," he manages.

"Is Charlie there?"

Oh, good, it's Agatha. "I'm alone," he assures her. "How'd it go?"

"Swimmingly." She's practically purring. "God, I wish I were doing this one myself, it's going to be gorgeous."

He can believe that. The layout sketch isn't much at a glance, but considered and brooded over Gil can see in his mind's eye the dramatic sweep of the landscape, storm-edged light and unrealistic colours on the stone. He takes a deep breath. "Your painter agreed, then?"

"He was practically drooling. He's going to drop everything and have it done by the end of February. Awful convenient not being in university." Agatha sighs again. "Are you in for thirty percent?"

"Wild horses could not drag me away from this deal." His father would be horrified, but that just means they have to be careful not to let on around him. He'll be so proud Gil found such a magnificent lost work. Gil stomps on the twinge of conscience that thought leaves him with. "If it's going to be available so soon I can put in the March show. Generate some interest."

"Good idea. Hm. Are you doing a printed catalogue? I might be able to get you some photographs - when's your printer's deadline?"

"We make them ourselves. There's this great hulking beast of a printer in the other back room." Gil grabs his pillow and pulls it onto his knees, in a futile attempt to find a comfortable way to hunch over. "I can work without photos, though. Maybe better that way? Less evidence later."

"If you think you can still get a buyer from the description."

"Sure I can," Gil says, and hopes he sounds more certain than he feels. "It's like showing the monster in horror movies. Easier to fall in love with something you can't see."

"That's a very strange metaphor to use about art."

"Uh. I have a very strange mind."

"Oh, it wasn't a complaint." He can almost hear Agatha smirking down the phone line. "You have a very twisty mind. I can always tell, you know. Almost as much as me. That's rare."

Fair enough; he can take that as a compliment. "Thank you."

"Anytime. Well, almost anytime. Speaking of which - will you be alone again on, say, Wednesday night? I should have something more to tell you by then. Final size, at least."

"That's fine." He finds himself grinning into the phone for no particular reason. It's absurd. It's not as if he's never been admired for his brain before. 

But nobody has ever called Gil twisty. The closest were a few bitter cases of _bent_ from that girl he'd turned down in sixth form, which meant something entirely different. He likes the idea of fitting into some criminal milieu more demanding than Gkika's basement on Poetry Slam Night. There's an element of wishful thinking in it, maybe. It's nice to imagine he's good at something, even if he's been in a state of low-grade panic at running the gallery singlehanded for the last week. Even if he managed to completely forget it was Saturday, and now he has fifty-eight minutes until it's no longer Sunday. That's okay. He can finish the page in fifty minutes. 

\--

Agatha flops back on the bed with a happy noise. The euphoria of a good plan will fade, she knows. It's Tarvek's turn for the fun part.

The noise of the shower is almost enough to drown out the noise of Lars singing, the bed is very soft, and Agatha is tempted, sorely tempted, to get up right now, pull out her easel, and start painting a dramatic sunrise over the Channel, just because she's in that kind of good mood. The only problem is that if she does, she'll be at it until actual sunrise.  
As a compromise, she rolls back to her side of the bed to grab her sketchbook, sits up halfway, and flips to a fresh page. What can she do that doesn't require moving far enough for coloured pencils? 

When Agatha looks up again the noise of the shower has stopped, the glow of the kitchen light is gone, and Lars is leaning against her bedroom door, towel draped low on his hips, late-night teamug in hand. "Having fun without me?"

She grins, tries not to blush, and holds up the sketchpad. Somehow, the past - fifteen minutes? Twenty? - have left her with a rough sketch and metasketch: a tilted portrait of Gil Wulfenbach, and Tarvek's head and shoulder and hand, reaching out to fill in the shading on Gil's hair. Of course, there are barely any details yet; it's more outline than sketch, gestures at the figures like something from a ten-minute sitting in life drawing class. And the Artist At Work is a theme she's tread over and over, into the ground, from her seventh- grade pastiches of Escher to, well, this. She likes the composition, though. It's like they're sharing a caress. 

She'll have to introduce Gil and Tarvek at some point. They would get along.

Lars tilts his head and regards the picture with furrowed brow. He's an artist of the stage, not canvas, but the dear boy tries. "I like it," he says. "Somebody you know?"

"From work, sort of." She'll have to admit to Lars how she keeps him in a London flat in a building from this century without asking for rent money, too. Some day not yet. "The one with the ponytail is Violetta's cousin. The one we were having dinner with. I'm sort of brokering a commission for him."

"Does this have anything to do with why Violetta isn't coming over tonight?"

"Something." Agatha blushes. "Nothing you have to worry about, okay? You have enough on your mind."

"Well, if I don't cram a little more on my mind tomorrow they'll be yelling at me at rehearsals." He smiles at her, that same warm, sweet smile that had convinced her, last summer, that maybe three lovers was exactly the right number after all. "Take my mind off it?"

Agatha flings her arms wide, and incidentally tosses the sketchpad back to the desk and yanks her dressing gown wide open. "Get rid of that towel and we'll see."

The towel hits the window very shortly thereafter.

\--


	3. Chapter 3

##### Thursday, January 26th, 11:12 

"Well, of course we'd have to examine the piece first, Make sure it's in good condition." Gil spreads his hands and half-shrugs. "A lot depends on condition"

"It's a plausible estimate," Selnikov says, "but a little lower than I could get at Sotheby's. My wife is very insistent that I not, and I quote, _let this one go for a song like that hideous Bellini._ "

By the window, Dupree stops cleaning her nails with her antique and entirely too decorated dagger long enough to make a face at Selnikov. Gil bites his lip, because bursting out snickering would almost certainly lose the sale. He takes a breath through his nose. "I expect it needs cleaning, if you've had it on display?"

He hasn't. Gil can see it in the man's sudden guilty look and the twitch of his thin moustache. For the past ten years, Rudolf Selnikov has owned _The Cambist_ , a masterpiece by any useful definition even if precisely whose masterpiece is less than clear, a portrait of a man from seventeenth-century Delft that makes him as real as his descendants you might meet today trying to take out a loan for a new Lexus, and the man hasn't even hung it in his own office where he can feel the old money-changer's solemn judgement on his ledgers every time he decides he can afford another weekend with that callgirl after all. Rudolf Selnikov kept it on a safe. 

He wasn't going to be merciful, but now Gil is determined to absolutely soak the idiot. 

"Could you loan it to us for an appraisal?" he asks, and makes the little hand-sign to Dupree for 'bad cop': two fingers curled and two tapping, like a flashed V-sign. "We know some excellent restorationists, and they could make sure that the piece is being shown in its best light. So to speak."

He can see a little bead of sweat on the man's temple. Selnikov coughs into his fist. "Well," he says, as if it were a sentence.

On cue, Dupree looks up and grins. "I bet he can't get it."

There's a squeal as Selnikov spins around in his leather executive chair. "What do you mean?"

She's made the dagger vanish by now, but honestly it's superfluous next to Dupree's grin. "I bet you gave it to your mistress. And maybe if you buy her some reeeeealy fancy diamonds she'll give it back. Did you really think the Wulfenbach Gallery was going to buy a pig in a poke, Mister Selnikov?"

There are times Gil wonders why his father hired a maniac like Dupree, and there are times he suspects her real job is to keep whatever might _happen_ to Klaus from happening, and there are times, like right now, he's just grateful she's around. 

"Don't be absurd. It's in my wall safe upstairs."

Ten minutes later they're back on the van. In the passenger seat Gil clutches the sheet-wrapped _Cambist_ to his chest, as well he can given its size. In the driver's seat Dupree leans back and laces her fingers behind her head. "That went well," she announces. "Are we paying him or nicking it?"

"Don't be ridiculous. He knows we have it. We're just going to clean him out on the cleaning fee."

"My devious boy." She reaches over to ruffle his hair. "Your father would be proud."

Gil waits for her to put the van in Drive and spin the wheel before he asks, "So do you have any leads yet?"

As he'd expected, she stomps on the accelerator and peels out at a speed more suited to a racetrack than a residential neighborhood, even one full of yahoos with solid gold sticks up their arses, as she'd colorfully described it on the way in. Really, it's stupid to say anything to Dupree while she's in control of a motor vehicle, even 'Slow down before you bloody well kill us', which she would take as a challenge. "Lots and lots," she snaps. "You know how many people want Klaus dead?"

"Er. More than I thought?" Maybe if they crash the painting will be trapped between the airbag and his body and survive.

"I just figure it can't be a Kurvi-Tasch crony 'cause they wouldn't have waited twenty years." She careens around a corner, almost clipping an innocent oak tree, and gives it a little more gas while the silver sedan that's suddenly behind them slams on the brakes. Gil decides he'll be happier if he just keeps his eyes closed. "There's a few guys who were out of the country. I might have to fly to Zurich this weekend. You should just stay here," she adds. "I know you get all weird about knives."

\--

##### Sunday, February 5th, 8:22

The faint light of a foggy dawn is enough to make even the Thames look romantic, and it's therefore a pity that Tarvek's new studio faces north, away from the river. Perhaps that's why it was available on no notice. He's resorted to pulling on a jacket and going for a walk, regardless of the risk to life and limb, on the basis that after three days of work and no showers, the smell will drive off anyone who might otherwise be inclined to rob him.

Some kind or optimistic soul has had a bench installed. Tarvek sits down with his hands stuffed in his coat pockets, and wonders if he should try some Impressionists when this job is over. Not his usual style, but at least it won't involve risking lead poisoning. 

Later. He's enjoying being Bludtharst. And when this one's made and sold, he'll enjoy going somewhere pretty and meaningless and being no one at all for a while.

There's the faintest yellow glimmer of actual sun on the water by the time someone sits down next to him. She'd made no noise walking up, but she somehow contrives to shake the bench with her landing and shoves a hand in his face. "One flavorless latte, Your Majesty."

Violetta must be in a good mood. He snags it and takes a sip to hide his smile. "So you've finally accepted your destiny as my loyal retainer?"

"Don't push your luck."

Tarvek wraps his hands around the warm paper cup and waits. He can hear Violetta beside him taking conspicuously loud slurps of her overdone medium roast. She'll give in eventually.

And sure enough, when he's halfway through, she does. "Are you going to come home quietly now I've bribed you with coffee or am I going to have to hit you over the head and drag you? Because people look at you funny if you carry bodies on the Tube."

"Remember how much heavier I am than you?"

"I guess I could stuff you in a sack and tell everyone you were a giant sewer rat. I mean, the smell fits. You'd better stay awake long enough to take a bath. I'm not saving you if you pass out and drown."

The shifting patterns of light are trying to sparkle off the tops of the tiny furrowed wind-waves, but there's a cloud rolling over the morning sun and soon the brightest thing in view will be the Malteser wrapper stuck in the rocks. He wants to go home. He wants to go home, and take a bath, and read the new Homarus Errant page, and eat something that he just cooked himself on a real stove, and then collapse into bed for twelve hours or so. Realistically, he shouldn't use a stove right now and Homarus Errant will be up late and the traffic noise will make it impossible to sleep. 

"I will come quietly on one condition," Tarvek says. "Come in and see how far I've gotten so far."

\--

Tarvek's studio is still a mess of crates, but he has one easel set up next to the window. The painting on it is just over a meter square - smaller than the rumours said, but that must have been the panel he had on hand. He's worked fast. He always does, and Violetta wonders if he actually paints faster than most people or if it just looks that way because he pulls so many all-nighters. But regardless of how or why, he's laid down the ground and a layer of underpainting, and it's easy to see the shapes of Heliopolis and the looming castle above it, already looking ominous in grey and red. There are lightly sketched human figures, but no trace of paint on them. A bonus in case anyone thinks to x-ray the thing, maybe.

In the broad swath of sky he's already begun the smudged shapes of an incoming thunderstorm, something that will turn the lighting below yellow and strange. 

"What do you think?" Her cousin sounds smug, but Violetta will give it to him; he's earned it. "Want to take it home and hang it over the sofa?"

"I want to _live_ there," Violetta tells him. "I could be a terrifying evil queen and wander the halls in a lacy black gown and demand tribute from my enemies. You can come too," she magnanimously offers. "You can be my Evil Chancellor."

\--

##### Sunday, February 5th, 13:02

 _97cm x 116cm_ , Gil types, and stops to tap his fingers on the table. He should be at home enjoying the peace and quiet, or at the gallery making calls. But the quiet was getting to him, so now he's writing up a blatantly false catalog description for a painting that doesn't exist yet in the middle of a coffeeshop. There's an argument going on about whether _The Sense Of An Ending_ deserved its Booker Prize, an old man Skyping with someone he feels free to coo at, and a woman in a trenchcoat looking suspiciously at the entire clientele over the top of the Financial Times. It's all deliciously human. 

Gil sips his London Fog while he considers his approach. The Wulfenbach Gallery doesn't go deep into provenance as is fashionable, and 'anonymous seller' is just about plausible for a piece that most people think didn't exist.

In which they are completely right. But there has to be some context.

He goes on to the next page and pastes in the scan of _The Cambist_ before cleaning. Right, he should take it over this afternoon, before he has to get Dupree at the airport, because she just assumes Gil will play chauffeur and can't be bothered to take the train like a normal human being. Okay, that's not a very nice thing to think. It's just one more thing to take care of, and the small surge of triumph from getting his page uploaded before noon is wearing off. He can write that one up later. Back to _Castle at Heliotropolis_.

Physical details, he can't go wrong with physical details. _Oil on oak panel, signed 'BH' in lower left corner. Condition: excellent. Ultraviolet examination reveals_

Wait, what does it reveal? Agatha's forger is, from what she's said, professional enough to know how to fool an ultraviolet examination, but it wouldn't be surprising if a piece of this supposed age and uncertain history had been restored. At some point. Or if her forger ran out of properly-aged varnish. 

Aaaargh.

Okay, he'll come back to it. They have weeks. All Gil has to do is come up with a plausible reason to finish the catalog himself instead of handing it off to Boris as soon as he gets back from Greece. He takes another drink. In accordance with the kind of day he's having, it splashes out and soaks half his shirt in hot tea and milk. 

\--

##### Wednesday, February 8th, 13:40

"You sure?"

"Not at all," Agatha says, and adjusts her _S & K Plumbing_ cap. "You backing out?"

"Not at all." Jorgi grins and taps his identical cap. "So vich of us is S and vich is K?"

"Neither. They own the company, we've never met them."

"Okay, ve can do zat."

"If anyone asks what we're doing, you only speak Syldavian." 

"Hy can do zat too."

"Nobody's going to ask," Violetta puts in from the front of the van. "They'll read as far as S & K Plumbing and assume you're inside with us doing something nasty to the drains." She finally slithers out of her seat, and starts to put in her earpiece. 

"Yez, but Hy hez to think abot vorse-case scenarios. Vat if diz Seffie vas havink us on?"

"Then we know where she lives and can wreak horrible vengeance," Agatha assures him, and leans in for a kiss. Jorgi's hands wrap around her waist, and she leans into it. It's nice to have him back in town. He's a better driver than Maxim and much less of a showoff. "Worst case," she says, "we run and you get us out of here. But I do know my way around an alarm system."

"Vell. Gut."

Violetta has got her earpiece in and her toolbox in hand. "We'll be back in twenty minutes," she says, and shoves open the back door. 

They march up to the garage door as if they belonged there. Violetta has already pulled on a set of child's gardening gloves, adult gloves in her size being thin on the ground, and is punching in the code her cousin so helpfully provided by watching Strinbeck-the-tosser (which she'd called him as casually as if it were part of his name) punch it in when he invited her over to see his etchings. Literally, although not for lack of trying.

Not that Seffie knows exactly what's happening here. She only knows that Violetta knows some people who know some people. 

The garage door rises without complaint.

On the one hand, Agatha was planning for this to be fast and messy. On the other hand, it's insulting how careless people are. What if someone like, well, like Agatha comes along? She's not even going to get the pleasure of rewiring a safe.

They close the door behind them and pad into the house. It's a nice house, very badly decorated in late Overdone Hypermodern. There's a bowl of glass fruit in the middle of his coffee table, surrounded by a careful scree of car magazines, and the sofas are black leather.

"This feels so weird," Violetta mutters as they tromp upstairs.

"We've done daylight jobs before."

"Yeah, but - " She holds up her empty hand. "Not replacing. The guy's going to know right away he got robbed."

Agatha winces at the reminder. She hates it too, but - "No time. Engravings are tricky to copy."

"Yeah, I know. It still feels weird. Third door."

Third door is Strinbeck's home office, with a sleek glass desk and giant monitor and three tall filing cabinets which have, amazingly, plain mechanical locks, the kind someone with a bit of patience could try all dozen keys that company makes to get through. But they're not doing that; it would be absurd to carry a dozen keys when the lock will open up for forty seconds of work with a decent set of lockpicks. Agatha starts to hum as she sets in on it.

She opens the second one while Violetta flips through the contents of the first, muttering under her breath - from the sound of it, that one has investment reports, more investment reports, and - "Aha," Violetta breathes as she pulls something from the bottom of the drawer. Flips it open. After a few seconds, just as quiet, "Ewwww."

Agatha pushes and twists and hears a satisfying little click. "Do I want to know?"

"Probably not. Dibs on the bath."

"Alright." Agatha pulls the bottom drawer out and moves over to number three.

She's riffling through its scant collection of old bank statements and wondering if Strinbeck had a sudden attack of sense and moved his etchings to a nice hidden wall safe, when Violetta says, "Got them."

"Oooh, gut job," Jorgi interjects over the earpiece. "Dat vas only eleven minutes."

"Don't get too excited, we still have to trash the place." Violetta grins as she passes over the etchings. Agatha takes a hasty flip through. Oooh. That lady on horseback isn't a Durer original, no monogram, but it's a good-condition Raimondi he's probably been passing off as one, not realizing how much more historical interest the truth would have. Agatha decides she's claiming that one and giving it to Tarvek. He'll get a kick out of it.

The rest doesn't look as interesting. There's not even a theme to it - the usual assortment of biblical scenes, plus a few Allegories of Naked People, which combined with the file cabinet suggests Strinbeck bought whatever was cheap at auctions. It makes her sorry he's probably getting an insurance claim for the lot. 

"Nothing spectacular," she says aloud for Jorgi's benefit. "Maybe sixty thousand pounds at auction, assuming nothing's too unique to auction."

There's a slight crackle as he chuckles. "Could be vorse. Dis vas an easy job."

"Right." Agatha sets the portfolio on the desk. "Time to be violent burglars."

There's a pleasantly ominous thump as Violetta sets down her toolbox, and a rattle as she pulls out the crowbar. "You want to do the honors?"

It's easier to make a filing cabinet look forced open if you already picked the lock than to actually force it open. Agatha wedges the crowbar above the drawer and shoves it down. The metal crumples under the blow. 

Just for fun they spread the tax paperwork out artistically on the floor, yank down his framed photographs - the man owns a dozen Old Master engravings, and he decorates his office with photos that wouldn't be out of place in a service station calendar - and slash the backs open like they were checking them for hidden cash, and pull the blotter off the desk. On a whim Agatha pockets his tower-of-golf-balls paperweight. Then it's back to the van. 

Jorgi is waiting with his feet up on the dashboard, doing a very convincing Bored Supervisor, even though nobody should be able to see them easily the way they're parked. He grins when he sees the portfolio cradled in Agatha's arms, wrapped in a bath towel for camouflage. She clambers in and grins back. "Your turn. I'll get it loaded."

"You're not using a potato this time, are you?" Violetta anxiously puts in. "Only he'll wonder why there's -"

"Nope." She produces the paperweight. "I was going to use a half-brick, but this is more confusing."

"Will it break the glass?"

"Let's find out, shall we?" She grabs Violetta just long enough for a kiss before she ducks into the back. Jorgi already has the Compression Cannon assembled on its stand; all she has to do is slip the paperweight into its barrel and let air into its chamber. It performed splendidly when she and Zeetha tried it out last weekend in the deserted lot across from the Lidl. It only took an hour of calibration and practice before Agatha was leaving her practice missiles - rocks, mostly - on the roof of the empty building next door, or whistling through the leafless branches of the sad carpark trees, on the first attempt. And Zeetha thought it was all just some light recreational vandalism. It's good to have friends. 

The starboard door opens and Jorgi climbs back in to the driver's seat. There's a smear of dirt down his coveralls. "All ready," he informs them. "Footprints left in de flowerbed, scrapes on de wall. Vere you want to shoot from? Driveway end?"

"Right. And when I say go, drive away as if nothing was wrong and you never heard of the Strinbeck house."

"Hy got it."

The van pauses at the end of the driveway, almost pulled out onto the pavement. Agatha sticks the barrel out the cracked-open back doors. She can feel Violetta's steadying hand on her back. She can see the window of Strinbeck's study, she can line it up with the barrel, no windage, seventy meters, aim just too high, _pull_.

The paperweight rises in its inevitable parabola and goes neatly through the window, with a tinkly crash.

Agatha yanks the barrel back and the doors shut. "Drive," she says. "Casually."

\--

##### Monday, February 13th, 12:44

Agatha was in an wonderful mood when she called to suggest they all meet up for lunch. Gil was too, having gotten his page done on time for once and having had a surprisingly pleasant visit with his father. Klaus had been in Gkika's best armchair and hadn't gotten up once to pace around the room, or fetch a book to prove a point, or make himself a cup of tea because he was _perfectly capable_ of making himself a cup of tea whatever the doctors said about unnecessary activity, which had gotten him into trouble when Gil was eight and he'd had what he claimed was an accident unloading the van. 

He even congratulated Gil on the Cambist deal, which was astonishing enough that Gil took several seconds to stammer out, "Um. It was mostly Dupree."

"Nonetheless, you saw the value of bringing her along. Well done." Gil clutched his Drink-at-Mama's mug and tried to fit his mind around the idea of his father complimenting his work, while Klaus went , "Who's doing the restoration?"

"Mittlemind and Mezzasalma." His father looked slightly pained at that, but he looked slightly pained every time he dropped something off with them, so Gil paid it no mind. "It should be ready in plenty of time for the sale. I was afraid after the Christie's report from the eighties it would need relining, but someone might have done that already, it looked almost new. I finally got the Goya sketches off Pruneswoggle, too, I traded for them with this full-length eighteenth-century Portrait of an Unknown Cavalier that walked in off the street. Well. That I had to fetch from Milton Keynes. And the really good news," he couldn't stop himself, it would have looked so strange not to mention it, "is that I have a solid lead on _Castle at Heliotropolis._ Which, it turns out, does exist."

"How solid?"

Gil lied, "I've seen a photograph."

And now he's sitting across from Agatha in the basement room of Mamma Gkika's, only two floors away from his father, waiting for her forger, who is either paranoid or sensibly reluctant about photographing the partly-finished work, to show up so Gil can interrogate him for the catalogue. He wonders what the man's name is. Not Fabritus.

Soon enough. For now he's enjoying a basket of fish and chips and some decent conversation, finally, with someone who isn't his father and isn't trying to sell him anything but is, despite both of those, downright _delighted_ to talk about the minutiae of ancient ink recipes with him.

\--

It's puppyishly endearing, the way Gil's eyes lit up when Agatha mentioned oak galls. She's been about to explain that she generally didn't bother, but somehow she instead started telling him about which parks within a sensible distance of London were the best sources, and that time she'd almost blown up her father's pressure cooker trying to accelerate the process, when she was ten, and had he ever made it himself from scratch?

"Just once," he admits. "I had to try it, but mostly I just use modern ink pens."

"Well, so do I, they're simpler. Technology does advance. And your drawings keep exactly like you put them down - don't get ne wrong, it's beautiful what oak gall does as it ages, but some things you just want to stay the same."

"And not eat through the paper," Gil adds, and solemnly upends the malt vinegar bottle over his next piece of fish.

"Also an advantage." Agatha's phone is buzzing; she pulls it out in case Tarvek is going to be any _later_. 

He's upstairs, he says, where are they? 

_Basement, stairs behind the bar,_ , she hastily taps out, and to Gil says, "Sorry. Our forger's finally here. He's never been to Mama's before." She'd never thought to bring him. He was a friend, but he wasn't one of _them_ like Jorgi and Maxim were. Or even like Gil. She'd heard about him from Jorgi - son of a friend of Gkika's, nice but incredibly awkward. The real article had been a pleasant surprise. It's always good to have someone you can geek out with, as Zeetha would put it, and maybe if the Castle scam works out she can get him to help with her chemistry experiments. The Bakelite trick is an old standby, but there must be better ways and Agatha has a suspicion they involve vacuum chambers.

"So what's his name?" Gil asks, but Agatha can already hear the creaking stairs. Gil's gaze follows hers as the door creaks open. Tarvek is dressed too nicely to be a painter, as always, and there's not even a giant smear of yellow ochre in his hair like that time Agatha's never going to let him live down.

There's no reason for Gil to get that half-horrified, half-furious expression.

She can see Tarvek's smile freeze in the doorway like the rest of him, and blank out, and transmute into a furious scowl. " _Wulfenbach,_ " he spits out in a _Syphilis_ kind of tone.

Gil growls, "I should have known." 

"Of course you don't have any scruples _now_."

"And you _never_ had any creativity."

Agatha puts in, "You two, ah, know each other?"

"Unfortunately." Tarvek doesn't stomp over to them, he's not the sort of person who stomps, but it might be described as a stalk. He sits down hard and crosses his arms. "I can't believe _he's_ your dealer."

"I can believe," Gil hisses, "very easily, that he's your forger. He's lied about enough things."

And here Agatha had thought this would be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Instead it looks like the smoking ruins of one. Oooooh, is she going to have to grill Violetta for details. But that's later; right now she has to make sure they're not so upset by each others' continued existence that they quit. "Nasty breakup?" she jokes.

The seething looks they exchange over the fish-and-chips make Agatha suddenly and painfully aware the joke struck home.

She groans and rubs her temples. Does the world absolutely have to be full of unpleasant coincidences? "Are you two going to be professional about it or do I get a forty-percent share for playing messenger?" She shoves her chips toward Tarvek in a vague attempt to be conciliatory.

Tarvek transfers his glare to the chips. "I can be professional." That gets a bark of a laugh. "After all, it's not as if this snake _succeeded_ at getting me kicked out of university."

There must be a story there. The most Agatha had ever gotten on the topic was a muttering about 'family reasons'. 

"Right." Gil takes a deep breath, visibly forcing down his anger. "It's not important. We have jobs to do and we can do most of them without ever interacting, which is probably for the best."

"Exactly." 

They glare at each other while Agatha helps herself to a piece of Gil's fish.

It's Gil, to her surprise, who breaks first. "Is this what you're doing all the time now? Pretending to be famous dead artists?"

"The money's good," Tarvek informs him. His sunny smile slips back into place, but there's a tight edge to it. Agatha gives it fifty-fifty whether one of them starts to throw things. Or both.

"As if you didn't have enough money."

"No, as a matter of fact, there was hardly anything left once the creditors picked over my father's estate. How about you? Still working the job your father picked out for you?"

"It's called a family business. They exist in forms other than investment firms, you know."

Agatha smothers a giggle. So it turns out Gil can do embarrassed fury after all.

Tarvek raises an eyebrow. "Well, I suppose not everyone can build up from nothing. And it makes things convenient for us." At least he's kept his wits enough to deflect the conversation. "It gets tiresome sneaking things into auction houses. Sooner or later they're going to start sharing databases and my career will take a serious blow."

"Not necessarily," Agatha points out. "It's not as if most pieces get sold regularly. And if they spot something, who's to say it wasn't the one from the nineties that's the fake?"

Across the table Gil is looking suddenly nervous. "You copy known works?"

"Only sometimes, for the sake of provenance. My family had a very old and poorly-documented collection." Tarvek's smile is a little pinched; the past tense is significant there. "Don't worry, none of them went through your gallery."

"Well. Good."

Gil sounds like a sullen child, and Agatha represses the urge to tell them, _Boys, play nice._ Instead she says, "I think better than half were direct sales. Nobody's complained. But most of them were drawings, so this one is going to be trickier."

That gets Gil to brighten up. "Not if we sell it to someone greedy enough. I've been putting out rumours, and Oublenmach would love to own a genuine Bludtharst. He buys for _investments_." There's just a hint of exasperation in Gil's voice. "He's already put in a bid for one painting from the show and I havn't even had it cleaned yet. Or put out the catalogue."

"Oublenmach? The real estate one?" Tarvek's brow furrows.

"How many stupidly rich people called Oublenmach do you know?"

"Just him, and from how he talks at parties I would have thought he'd prefer gold bars." He sighs. "Well, you're the expert. At least he doesn't get to keep it."

Gil relaxes a little, smirking. "Now you have scruples?"

"It's _my painting_ , even if I'm pretending to be Bludtharst. I'm allowed to be a little upset by the notion of it hanging forever on the office wall of a blowhard who uses it to impress clients."

At least they're getting along now. Maybe this wasn't as terrible an idea as she'd briefly been afraid it would be. Agatha finds herself thinking of the sketch she did with Tarvek drawing Gil's portrait. She'll have to do a matching one the other around. And once he's off his creative high she'll have to get Tarvek drunk and get the true story of how he left university out of him, because suddenly three years of subject-changes are making her wonder what, exactly, he was trying to hide.

Or just ask Gil outright. He might even tell her.

\--


	4. Chapter 4

##### Tuesday, February 14th, 20:12

Lars frowns at the sliver of strawberry and chocolate balanced on his fork. "Apology for what?"

"Snapping at the art dealer he's doing the commission for." Agatha shrugs. "Turns out they have a history."

"So he gives _you_ dessert?" He takes the bite, and his eyebrows go up. "Fwewr - very good dessert. Should I be jealous?"

Agatha wants to lean over the table and lick the bits of chocolate from his lips, but she'd probably knock over the wine bottle or set her shirt on fire or something similarly humourous. Instead she trails her bare toes up Lars's ankle and wiggles them, enjoying the way he shivers, almost imperceptibly, at the touch. "You aren't jealous of Violetta and Jorgi," she points out. "And them, I'm actually dating."

"Yes, but they came first and you hooked up with me _anyway._ It's an ego boost. Whereas if this artist has designs on you, I really can't offer anything better. I am but a poor player, strutting and fretting my hour upon the stage. I'm very definitely not a cook. You remember the string cheese incident."

"All too well." Agatha grins and takes a strawberry piece between her fingers. "But that's why we have so many takeaway menus." 

"So, nothing to worry about?"

"Nope. Besides, he's Violetta's cousin. It would just be weird." She rolls her eyes. Lars is a sweetheart, but he gets so insecure, convinced that there's something Agatha isn't telling him. It would be a lot more annoying if he weren't right. "Violetta's weird enough."

"Violetta is _unique_ ," Lars corrects, with the edge of a smirk. "More people should threaten catcallers with transubstantiation."

"What if she tries it on a Catholic? The Doom of Hrodpreht is more poetic."

They keep their straight faces for about four seconds before bursting into giggles at the memory. The guy had backed off in sheer confusion. Violetta's temper was a glorious thing. 

Someday Agatha will have to tell Lars what she really does for a living. Someday. 

But not today, not while he's waving a forkful of chocolate cake at her and smiling like they're sharing a private joke.

\--

##### Wednesday, February 15th, 16:14

The Serpentine is shrouded in mist even though it's afternoon, and with the trees thick on its banks Violetta could almost believe she's on some country estate somewhere, not in the heart of London. It's a nice thought. Tempting. Bugger off and let her idiot friends sort themselves out. 

Ten percent, she reminds herself. Not exactly retire-to-Bermuda money, but a few months' rent, and a really nice designer dress or two. 

Beside her Zeetha flings her last stone. It bounces off the water once - twice - three times before it vanishes, and Zeetha lets out a heavy sigh. "I could do better on the Coliflor."

"You probably get better stones back home," Violetta offers. 

"Or I'm just losing my touch." Zeetha settles down next to Violetta on the bench, in one easy movement that somehow doesn't even make the bench shake. "Maybe it's the temperature. I mean, this place is ridiculous. Look at me. I'm wearing _fleece_." She spreads her arms dramatically. It's a nice, soft, thin fleece and it matches her hair, and Violetta bites back a comment about how most people would be sitting here with their teeth chattering in that outfit.

She wraps her arms around her knees instead, and stares out over the water. It's peaceful out here. There aren't even any idiots in boats.

Eventually Zeetha says, "Have you ever gone swimming here? Is it allowed?"

"I have no idea," Violetta tells her frankly. "Even if it is, it'd be too cold, except maybe for a week in August. And I wouldn't want to meet a swan."

Disturbingly, Zeetha's eyes light up at the mention of swans. "Are they tasty? Should I bring a spear?"

She's almost certainly playing the Wild Jungle Warrior just to make Violetta giggle, and the trouble is, it's working. When she gets her breath back she manages, "Don't try it. All swans are property of the Queen. Would you steal from a nice old lady?"

"Mmmmmaybe." Zeetha stretches her legs out and throws her head back, the picture of casual relaxation. "What does she need a bunch of swans for? They can only hold so many state dinners. I wouldn't take the Crown Jewels or anything, I bet she has a sentimental attachment."

"Plus they'd be impossible to fence."

"Who says I'd fence them? Take them home to San Theodoros, demand a few billion in aid money to send them back. We could use it if we're ever going to get the spaceport going." 

"I like the way you think." Violetta lets her legs drop; sitting like that was a lot less comfortable than it looked. "There are better targets, though. Maybe you could go for the British Museum. See what Greece would give you for the Elgin Marbles."

"Please. They have glass-break sensors on every window in the place and guards who don't drink. The only way in would be a daylight raid with guns - well, gun replicas, not worth the trouble of getting real ones in London - and you can't exactly carry out the Elgin Marbles in your arms. Maybe some of the Benin bronzes, though, those you could fit in a suitcase."

That's - an impressive piece of deduction. "When did you work that out?

"When I went there with Gil and Maxim." Zeetha frowns, scratching her lip in a way that looks like a nervous habit. "Of course I cased the joint." The idiom drops in like she's sticking it in with a pin, the slight affectation of someone fluent, but not completely comfortable with every sentence.

"Do you case every joint you walk in to?"

"Pretty much. It's a hobby." 

"I thought I was the only one who did that." Stupid, stupid, she shouldn't have mentioned it. Violetta looks away to hide her blush. There's a man walking his dog on the opposite bank, but they're alone except for him. The sky is a flat grey that looks as if it's about to start raining any second now. Somewhere in the distance, someone is honking their car horn. 

"Nah." And Zeetha's next words are softer, as if she really doesn't want to admit to them. "I guess I'm just - fantasizing. It would be fun to be a jewel thief. When I was little I'd hear my mother complaining about not having enough money, and now I know she was talking about thirty million pounds for building a new hydroelectric dam or things like that, but little kids have no sense of scale, you know? So I tried going up to a bank chairman at a party and holding him up with my water pistol. I was four. He thought I was funny, so he gave me fifty _pesos_ s."

Violetta can picture it all too easily. A tiny girl in a party dress, green to match her hair - she has no idea if Zeetha was dyeing her hair at that age, but somehow she can't picture her friend with hair any colour but green - doing her best death-glare at a man in a nice suit. It would have been too long ago for the man to have feared for his smartphone, but he could have feared for his suit, especially if he didn't know what was _in_ the water pistol. "Good problem solving skills, though," she says. "I would never have had the guts to do that. I'd just have gone off and cuddled my bears and felt miserable."

Zeetha shrugs. "Might have been more sensible. Mother gave me this long lecture on not threatening people who hadn't done anything wrong, and then she said I didn't have to worry about that sort of thing until I was older. So of course I decided I'd have to have some stupendously lucrative career. Like jewel thief. I guess rocket scientist isn't going to cut it."

"Do both. Scientist by day, jewel thief by night. I bet you'd be good at it. Proper cat burglar style." 

Zeetha tilts her head back to look at the clouds. Cloud, that is, since the sky is solid grey. " _You_ could do cat-burglar. You know you're the only person who doesn't make the stairs up to my flat creak? It's creepy."

That's just a random comment, right? She can't suspect Violetta of anything. "Thanks. I think." 

"Compliment!" She's grinning now. "You're subtle. You notice little things." Little things like the way Zeetha is tapping the back of the bench with her fingers, for all her posture of casual relaxation. Like there's something she's fretting about. Violetta has only known Zeetha for a few weeks, but they've been intense ones, involving multiple trips to museums, an ill-starred attempt at chocolate cake, and in general more gleeful determination to Have A Good Time than one person should be able to contain. Why she picked Violetta to help, Violetta doesn't know. But she does know Zeetha isn't the sort of person who dithers, and so it's strange when her friend goes on, "You know how to keep a secret. Right?"

"I can." Violetta bites her lip. But she has to ask. "Do you need me to?"

"Mmmmaybe." And suddenly Zeetha has turned to her, folding them into a little private conference, hand on her shoulder. "What would you do," she asks, "if you knew something about someone, and weren't sure if they hadn't brought it up because they didn't know if _you_ knew? The sort of thing that could really hurt if the wrong person found out?"

That sudden rush of nausea is her heart going into nervous overdrive. Violetta swallows. They're so careful, her and Agatha both, but   
Zeetha knows the guy from the Wulfenbach Gallery, doesn't she? What if he let something slip? "If it were about me," she offers, voice tightening involuntarily into a squeak, "I'd want to clear the air. If you were my friend."

"Well - Are you okay?" Zeetha tilts her head, frowning. "You're all pale. Is this the bit where you tell me Agatha used that gas gun we made to get into a third-story window at some jeweler's and you're about to flee the country with the loot? Violetta?"

And that _proves_ she doesn't know, but some signs are too bloody obvious to ignore. If Zeetha balks at the truth - it was a sarcastic joke and Violetta is actually hiding something harmless and embarrassing. Right. 

"Not exactly," she says. "It was just some rich idiot's house."

And besides, Zeetha _did_ help with the gas gun, they _owe_ her.

\--

##### Thursday, February 16th, 9:02

Gil realizes he's tapping his fingers on his coffee mug - Gkika has many talents, but she's never got the hang of tea - hard enough to make it shake, and makes himself stop. It's ridiculous. "Did you do chemical tests?" he finds himself asking, inanely. 

"Please. We're not amateurs." Mittelmind's voice is distorted and buzzy over the speakerphone, which is to say, Gil's cell phone sitting in the middle of the table with the volume turned up. "From the alcohol swab alone I'd swear this thing was painted in this millenium."

On the other side of the table Klaus is looking increasingly dour, and Gil doubts it's just the lingering surgical pain. Gkika is going through her black pudding with all the intensity of someone who isn't touching this with a ten-foot pole. Klaus growls, "How much did you check? A little undocumented restoration -"

"- wouldn't go down to the panel." Mittelmind sounds awfully cheerful for someone delivering bad news. "No, I'm terribly afraid that your Cambist is an RBS director in disguise. As genuine as the Hitler Diaries. A real -"

"Forgery. We get the idea." Klaus rubs his forehead. Now he just looks old and tired. 

He'd better cut in before they annoy their most reliable restorers. Gil tries to keep his voice bright and chipper. "Just as well we bought it on consignment, then. Selnikov's loss." 

The crackly voice suggests, "Pity you can't get him for fraud. It was superficially very convincing."

"Superficially." And now the growl is back in Klaus's voice. "Can you courier it back with a report?"

"Absolutely! Tomorrow morning."

"See to it," Klaus growls, and stabs at the End Call button despite it being Gil's phone,

Gil wants to protest, but he knows it wouldn't do any good to upbraid his father for rudeness, not right now. He's still sick. Well. Still injured. And his temper must be fraying, to snap at their most reliable restorationists like that. The last time he'd done it Gil was ten and just starting to learn the business. They'd gone together to drop off a set of uninspiring nineteenth-century landscapes they had a gullible over-the-sofa buyer for if they would just clean up that yellowed varnish, please, and somehow his father and Mittelmind had gotten caught up in a discussion about the latest auction at Sotheby's. Mezzasalma had beckoned Gil aside with a crooked finger and asked him if he wanted to help with a little side project. Something with a little more energy.

It turned out, his father didn't consider attaching booster jets to a wheelchair to be an educational experience.

But he hadn't approved of Gil learning to card-sharp either, at first, and Gkika had eventually talked him around. And now, she's laying a hand on Klaus's wrist and telling him, "Hyu vin some, hyu lose some, yez?"

"It looked just like I would have expected," Gil anxiously throws in. 

Klaus's voice starts as a low growl. "Am I supposed to feel better," and now it's steadily rising, "that the heir to my gallery was _duped_ by a _twenty-first-century fake?_ " He's somewhere between hissing and shouting by the end, voice wavering. Gil winces, half from guilt, half from sympathy. It hurts to see his father so off-balance. 

But Gkika is made of sterner stuff. She tightens her hand on his wrist, pointed fingernails leaving dents on his skin. "Hyu iz supposez to tink about all de times hyu missed someting dat people vere trying to keep hyu from noticink," she growls, "und be glad your son didn't offer cash hin advanze, und apologize for snapping hat him." 

"And you aren't supposed to interfere with family arguments." Klaus's eyes are cold and narrowed. 

A heavy sigh. "Hokay. Dis is now un _us_ argument."

"What?" 

"Gil, sveethot, vill hyu get rid of de breakfast dishes?"

It's a perfectly respectable reason to flee. 

The dishes are all in Mamma's Pub pattern of thin green stripes, which is Gil's answer if anyone wonders why he's taking Gkika's dishes down to the pub kitchen. But the waitress desultorily rolling napkins just gives him a friendly little wave. He waves back, it would be weird not to, and goes to get some tiny prawns out of the cooler. When he drops the prawns in the lobster tank Zoing doesn't even go after them, just keeps scuttling around, waving his antennae at the plastic plants.

"Fine," Gil tells him. "At least somebody had a nice breakfast." Even through the soundproof ceiling, he can hear the fuzzy edges of the yelling as Gkika an his father keep on with their argument. It's gone on stupidly long now. They always do. 

The responsible thing to do would be to call his potential buyer right now and explain it's off the market, but talking to Oublenmach the first time had made his head hurt. He's the kind of buyer who makes Gil believe in Agatha's theory of People Who Don't Deserve Art. Blatantly an investor, and what's more, the smart kind who tries to anticipate trends. It would be cowardly to forget his advance bid completely and let him find out from the auction catalogue that they've withdrawn _Cambist_ from sale. Gil is just going to have to be a coward.

Zoing has swum over to the near corner and is waving his antennae against the glass, like he's trying to get Gil's attention. Gil presses his palm to the glass. It's amazing how big his old pet is now. 

He doesn't live in a tiny flat in Paris anymore, he could have a pet again, Klaus probably wouldn't complain. Gil could take Zoing back. If he weren't so busy all the time.   
Right now he'd better get over to the gallery. There's a lady coming by at eleven to pick up a couple of etchings, and he has to finish the damn catalogue and move things around to cover for the big impressive work that won't be there, and then he's going to start making annoyed phone calls about the mess. They had that report from Christie's in the eighties, so the real thing existed then. Maybe Selnikov's mistress took it away, but anyone with the thoughtfulness to replace a painting with a solid, if modern, forgery, should have known it was a little too famous to sell. Maybe Seknikov's mistress took it just for revenge, and the real thing is hanging in her bedroom. 

Unless Selnikov bought it without getting it properly appraised, and whoever he bought it from was the victim. 

Or was responsible. 

Too many questions. Later. He'd better get out of here before his father decides to come downstairs to look for him.

\--

##### Saturday, February 18, 18:12

For some reason actually showing someone Sunday's page, in the flesh - well, paper - gives Gil the heebie-jeebies, for all that it will be going up online where anyone in the world can look at it tomorrow. Maybe it's the name. He's always been Gilgamesh Wulfenbach to Zeetha; he's always been Gil Holzfaller to his readers. Gil Holzfaller doesn't have so much to worry about.

Of course, this is completely his fault for leaving it on the scanner. 

"Awww." Zeetha breaks into a grin as she examines the page, holding it up by the corners. "I like the armour. It's hard to make armour look good on a lobster."

"Not really. You just have to follow the pattern of their shell." Gil rubs the back of his neck and stares at the corner of the door in the hopes it will keep him from blushing. "I screwed up on the colouring, really, brown's boring."

Very gently, as carefully as if it were an Old Master silverpoint instead of something Gil's already got the value out of, Zeetha sets the page down on the examining table. She opens her mouth. Then she closes it again, eyes narrowing, and folds her arms. "What's it called? The story?"

" _Homarus Errant_. Uh. Homarus for the scientific name, and Errant like in knight-errant. It's kind of a silly name. But I was fourteen when I came up with it." When Zeetha was fourteen, she'd accepted her first professional football contract with CD Hotuatabotl. He must sound so childish by comparison. "I used to have a pet lobster," he explains, as if that explained anything.

"Reeealy?" Zeetha grins at him. "Most people have dogs or parakeets or something."

"I stole him from a supermarket. When I was eight. I thought Father would be mad, but he just gave me this long lecture about responsible pet care and then he bought me a giant tank. But I couldn't take him to university with me, so Gkika adopted him - she's a friend of Father's. Runs a pub." He's babbling. Apparently he still acts like an idiot around people he likes and wants to impress. She should start laughing at him any minute now.

All she does is tilt her head and smile. "It sounds like your dad really cares about you."

"It's always just been the two of us." Gil half-shrugs. His smile feels a little forced. 

Zeetha is looking at him like she's trying to read his mind, but it only takes a second before the intensity vanishes behind another bright grin. "Yeah, it's weird being an only child. Mother used to bring me to cabinet meetings with her. Said it gave everyone valuable perspective. Mostly the talk just went over my head. I got to serve the tea." 

Gil winces. "I guess being brought up in an art gallery is normal by comparison."

"It's a nice gallery, though." She waves a hand at the racks of paintings waiting for someone to fall in love and take them home.

Which are all beautiful, and none of which are his, and sometimes Gil feels downright guilty that _Homarus Errant_ is likely to be the sum total of his artistic accomplishment. It doesn't even have real colours. He just throws them on in Photoshop.

Zeetha's cough shocks him out of his brooding. "So? Do I get the rest of the grand tour?"

It takes a while to explain the histories of all the interesting paintings they have on hand, and leaf through the file cabinets of sketches and prints, but the offices hardly take any time. Dupree's desk is festooned with bone figurines, Boris has a shelf full of old auction catalogues and his own coffeemaker, Gil has nothing more interesting than an antique music box. His father's, at least, has a decoration worth a detour - a genuine Piranesi etching, the stupidly magnificent and completely imaginary arched interior of the Temple of Vespa. "Father turns down an offer for that thing every few months," Gil explains. "He says it's an amazing conversation starter, and all the conversations go, Let me show you some other prints we have you might like."

"I think I like his taste," Zeetha says. But she's not looking at the Piranesi; she's looking at the little oil painting next to the door. The one of Klaus and Gil on the Spanish Steps. "Did he paint that?"

Gil winces. "I did," he says. "Ten years ago. I was just copying a photo." The bloke who'd taken the vacation snap for them had a good eye for framing, even if his English had been terrible. Gil doesn't know why his father kept it so long.

Zeetha lays a companionable hand on his shoulder. "You know something?"

"Um. Lots of things. What?"

"If you keep insulting yourself you'll start believing it. It's a bad habit." Gil opens his mouth to protest, and Zeetha slaps a hand across it. "No, wait, you already do, don't you?" She shakes her head. "I didn't start hanging out with you because I thought you were _boring_."

He might as well be honest. "I have no idea why you want to hang out with me."

"You know an incredible amount about art and your eyes light up when you talk about it," Zeetha informs him. "It's fun and educational. Also, you're from San Theodoros, so I should be looking out for you as a fellow citizen." She crosses her arms. "When your dad's recovered I want to hear him explain why you left. There's got to be more to it."

Better hospitals in London seems like enough of an explanation to Gil, and it's not like they could have gone back to Borduria. He's pretty sure his father still has warrants out there. But that's not Gil's story to tell.

\--

##### Sunday, February 19, 11:12

The smell of something frying is what eventually wakes Tarvek up. He blinks a few times, trying to put his memories in order. Somewhere around two in the morning he'd run out of caffeine pills, he remembers that, and stumbled out of his studio in search of a taxi, pretty sure he'd only run out of caffeine pills because Violetta had nicked half the bottle when she came by on Friday and with half-formed notions of waking her up to complain. But by the time he'd found a taxi all Tarvek wanted was to sleep. He just barely remembers climbing out of the soft, comfortable seat, wishing the building lights would go away; he must have taken the lift on autopilot.

"Is that soy sauce?" someone's voice says from the kitchen. A voice he doesn't recognize, at that. 

Violetta's, which he does, answers, "Nope. Balsamic vinegar. See, Tarvek likes his kitchen shiny, and he thinks labels distract from the classy ambiance, as if he had any class."

"Violetta! Be nice." At least Agatha is defending his honour, even if she's giggling at the same time. 

Tarvek blinks at the ceiling and debates his chances of getting cleaned up and dressed without his uninvited guests hearing. Low to none, he decides. But he can probably get _into_ the shower and Violetta won't actually drag him out. He shifts his weight on the sofa to see if it creaks. It doesn't, and he manages to sit up, feel around for his glasses - they turn out to be on his face - and pad into the bathroom without making noise. He can hear Violetta and the unknown voice still in the kitchen, arguing about pepper.

Sure enough, he's barely gotten his hair wet before the bathroom door slams open. Of course Violetta could go through the privacy latch in her sleep. "Hey!" she yells.

Tarvek pulls the curtain back just enough to glare at her. "You could have knocked."

"The shower was on. You want food or are you on one of your nobody-else-can-cook kicks? We're having flatbread things. For lunch. Lunch for us, anyway. When did you get in last night?"

It wasn't a nobody-else-can-cook kick, it was a Violetta-specifically-needs-lessons kick, but there's no point arguing about it now. "This morning," he tells her. "Who exactly did you invite over for lunch that I've never met?"

"Agatha's boyfriend. The muggle."

That is a horrible term for people who aren't involved with significant-pause-business, if they use it in front of him he'll wonder why, and Violetta knows all that and probably said it just to tick him off. Tarvek isn't going to play. "If you're going to burst in here, make yourself useful and bring me some clothes," he says instead. "The lavender silk shirt, grey trousers, and the purple socks." If he's going to meet Agatha's boyfriend he should try to look as gay as possible. 

Twenty minutes later he's thoroughly confused Agatha's boyfriend by kissing his hand - may as well go all out - and is sitting down to a lunch that's actually still warm, which is more charity than he expected from Violetta. There's tea, too, and Tarvek tries not to lose all dignity as he grabs for it. 

The sleep helped, at least. He doesn't feel like he's about to fall asleep on his plate, even if he'd dearly love to abandon this mess for a strong coffee and the distant possibility that _Homarus Errant_ has updated on time. He lets the conversation go on around him, focusing on the teacup, until Violetta prods him in the shoulder. Tarvek blinks. "Progress," Violetta repeats. "How's the commission?"

"You mean you didn't break into my studio first?"

Violetta rolls her eyes. "I know it looks almost done, duh. Do you like how it looks, or are you going to strip half the paint off and try again?"

"No." And he really is smiling at that, ridiculous though it feels. "I'll be done by next Sunday. Maybe sooner."

Agatha's boyfriend - Lars, his name was - offers, "Is this the thing Agatha was brokering? She wouldn't give me details." 

"And very rightly so," Tarvek informs him, and tries to think what he can go on about at such length that Lars completely forgets the question. He doesn't begrudge Agatha her bit on the side - Tarvek can see the appeal of that smile - but he does bristle a little that Violetta brought him here and then brought up the Bludtharst.

\--

##### Thursday, February 23rd, 10:24

"Wulfenbach Gallery?" Damn. He shouldn't say that like a question. 

"Hello, this is Rex Aalborg," the crackly voice says, and Gil bites back a gasp. There are only so many reasons a museum director would be calling them. "Can I speak to Mr. Wulfenbach, please?"

"Speaking." It’s not technically a lie.

"You - really?" Aalborg sounds surprised, but he goes on cheerfully enough, "I wouldn't have expected you to answer your own phone."

"We're a bit short-staffed right now." Down to three of five, and five was short enough. If Daiyu quit he'd have to start begging Gkika for staff loans. "How can I help you?"

"There's a rumour going around," the man says. "And I certainly hope it's true."

Ten slightly dizzying minutes later Gil sets the phone back in his cradle. He got through that with only a few outright lies; the rest was misdirection and subterfuge. No outright commitment. As off-putting as he can plausibly be. After all, they're not trying to con a _museum_ into buying their fake Blustharst. No, a museum might find out the fraud right away. Or worse, not find out and put it on public display. How had they known to ask, anyway? Gil had only spoken to a half-dozen people, the kind who might have bought a Bludtharst, except this one would get bid up beyond their means very, very quickly. Agatha had promised to arrange that.

His teacup is vibrating. 

After a minute Gil realizes it's because his hand is shaking. 

\--


	5. Chapter 5

##### Thursday, February 23rd, 12:46

This isn't usually Agatha's part of the job, because usually it isn't anyone's. They sell to significant-pause-businessmen who understand where Agatha's stock comes from. Setting up a shell game like this leaves her uncomfortably dependant on Gil for advice.

And Gil's advice was that Oublenmach was rich and greedy enough to buy two Old Master paintings in the space of two months, and that he tended to show up for appointments early, and so here she is, planting ideas just in case the rumour doesn't reach him. "It is lovely," she allows, squinting at the Valpolicella. "Especially the vineyard - he was good with landscapes. Not the best of them. But good."

"Really? And who would you say was the best of them, dear girl?"

Her fingers twitch, but Agatha somehow doesn't punch him for that. The thought of all the money they'll be taking off him helps. "Bludtharst," she says, putting a dittelante's conviction into her voice. 

Her mark raises an eyebrow. "Really? Most people would say D'omas. Bludtharst did capprici."

"And Andronicus did battle scenes, and both of them put better landscapes in the backgrounds than D'omas ever sold to a gullible duke in a pretty gold frame." She rolls her eyes. Tone it down, that was a little strident. "Have you ever looked at _Temple of Clio_? He framed it like the temple was a kilometer away up a river. And maybe that was just symbolism about how time marches on and history is always out of reach, but it meant he had to put in a kilometer of river, and it's the most interesting part of the painting."

Now Oublenmach looks a little intrigued. He should. _Temple of Clio_ fetched eight hundred thousand - pounds, it was more in dollars - at auction in New York three years ago. He must remember, because he says, "Oh yes. Quite a pretty piece. Did anyone ever admit who bought it?"

"Of course not." Wistful sigh. "You know how these things go. Anonymous buyer, and it vanishes into a vault somewhere for a generation. Or two or three."

"So you'd best snatch these things up at the first auction they land at."

Agatha wrinkles her nose, and turns back to the Valpolicella portrait, brushing her hair back. "Exactly."

"You have a certain wit about you."

And it's telling her to go home and have a long hot bath after this, but she'll have to ignore it in favour of her Exothermic Chemistry class, which at least has Zeetha in it. "I wish I had a certain hedge fund," she mutters. "What I wouldn't give to snatch up _Castle at Heliotropolis_ at auction."

"But surely that's only a legend, dear girl." In his reflection in a glassed-over sketch she can see Oublenmech looking quizzical, eyes narrowing. "The rumours came to nothing, and if it were in the hands of some private collector that would have been the best time to sell."

And the man believes, sincerely believes, that no one would have loved a painting enough to keep it in their own vault where they could go visit it, and look at the landscape as if they were looking out a window, and dream about the hands of the master that made it, and not put it under the hammer no matter how much money they might have gotten. Sometimes Agatha despairs of the human race. But she doesn't let it show. She turns back to him, matching his quizzical look with what Lars claims is an _adorable_ moue of confusion, and presses a finger to her cheek. "Are you sure? I've seen the preparatory sketches. Well, one of them."

"That hardly proves the painting exists," Oublenmach tells her. But there's a light in his beady little eyes that tells her he's at least sniffing the air, metaphorically speaking. "Where was this? That one in Munich turned out to be a Hebborn. Surely that little tidbit made the rounds."

"Oh no. It was right at this gallery. They picked it up at an auction this year." _You can come out now,_ she thinks, as if she could telepathically transmit it to Violetta by sheer willpower. They're too used to the earbuds. They should have worn the earbuds. "You weren't there?"

"No one can attend every art auction in London, my dear."

"I just thought, maybe - you seem like such a connoisseur." She waves a hand vaguely at the Valpolicella to stand in for the entire Romanian School. Flattery never hurts.

"When was this?"

"January? I don't remember, he just said it was a few weeks ago." Friday the Thirteenth, to be exact, but being exact would be suspicious. _Come out, Violetta._

"I was probably out of town." And now Oublenmach is doing a smarmy smile. "A good friend of mine invited me to go fishing in the Gulf, and you simply can't turn down a yacht trip like that. It's just a little forty-footer, but the deck is real mahogany."

_Help, I'm being held hostage at marlin-point,_ Agatha thinks, as loud as she can.

But in fact it takes three minutes of pretending to be fascinated by his friend's blinged-out dinghy before Violetta and Gil spill out of the back office, beaming at each other like they've just made a deal. "Monday, then," Gil says, and then, "Mister Oublenmach! So sorry to make you wait." He strides over like a man with a purpose to shake his hand. He must have practice not feeling the psychic slime.

Violetta raises her eyebrows at Agatha. Down by her hip, out of the mark's line of vision, Agatha gives her a thumbs-up.

\--

##### Thursday, February 23rd, 16:06

There's a certain smell to auction houses, somewhere between paint and perfume, but the perfume fades away once you're in the back rooms. Nobody's complained about a random stranger walking through the Employees Only sections. Violetta is good at being ignored and unnoticed, as long as she doesn't open her big stupid mouth.

It helps that she's dressed in business casual and holding a clipboard. Wear business casual, carry a clipboard, and walk with purpose, and everyone will assume you're on some sort of important errand.

She presses herself between two massive crates on dolleys anyway as three people in much nicer clothes - suits that might plausibly be tailored, which her cousin claims is obvious just by looking and Violetta can never tell by looking - hurry past, one of them on their mobile phone. She catches snatches of conversation - "all the way from Prague, what are they trying -" and "century I'll eat my foot" and "we won't be a party to this, we'll tell them that". And, spoken loudly like a chant, " _Forged export license_ ". It rings in her hearing like a song getting stuck in her head as they turn the corner. Violetta can't quite time her heart beat to it; her heart is going too fast.

Which is stupid. Executives never remember the faces of all their employees. Violetta would be in more danger from the tea lady.

One of the crates is stuck all over with labels, FRAGILE and THIS END UP and DO NOT STACK. It's five feet tall, who'd even try? The other just has an address label. Maybe it's a bronze sculpture, or one of those postmodern pieces about decay and breakage she could arguably improve with a cricket bat.

Leave it be. Not why she came here.

She slips out and strides purposefully away. There are two men lurking behind another crate, but they have the furtive look of people taking an unauthorized break, so she strides on regardless. There must be something interesting in here. 

And there's a promising door with "Restoration Room Four" on it in elaborate blackletter - someone must have been bored - so Violetta sighs heavily and slips through.

On the other side is a man in thick glasses with the kind of swept-back stiff hairstyle that looks ridiculous on anyone but Wolverine, squinting at a painting laid out flat on the table - a badly-done portrait of some guy in a lacy collar. Must be Dutch. The not-Wolverine guy glares at her. "If Vicky sent you to threaten me again," he says, "tell her I'm retiring to the South Downs to keep bees and never have to stare down her deadlines again."

"No, no, just checking up, no rush." Violetta waves her hands frantically and takes a chance. "I can stick around and help, in fact."

For a nervous second the way not-Wolverine is squinting makes Violetta afraid he'll _notice_ he's never seen her before, but as usual, unwillingness to admit to having forgotten someone's name wins out. "Come over and help me get this thing under the blacklight, then." He points at a box of latex gloves.

They carefully lift the panel by its edges to put it on the other table, beneath an oversized amp on an armature. Not-Wolverine flips the light on, and they stare at the patchy fluorescence. 

"Well," Not-Wolverine says, sounding tired, "it wasn't a very good painting anyway."

"No kidding. I'm surprised anybody bothered to restore it. Unless he was somebody's ancestor." Violetta scowls.

"I think he was. Vicky was saying something about a precious heirloom. Where's my camera?"

An hour later Violetta has helped Not-Wolverine photograph the portrait, take a few scrapings of paint from the restored areas so he can check for damaging chemicals, examine the stretcher for woodworm and dry rot, and come to the muttering conclusion that it needs relining. More usefully, she's seen him start an email to Vicky summarizing all that, and gotten his email password. Afterwards he anxiously checks the humidity, concludes aloud that it can be left out safely, and then says, "Oh shit, I'm not keeping you late, am I?"

Violetta glances at her watch and does a convincing. "Charlie will forgive me," she says, and bites her lip. "He did last time."

"Go. The email should shut up Vicky."

"Right, thank you _so much_ ," Violetta tells him, and dodges out the door before he can remember to wonder who she is.

She can hear distant doors shutting and the quiet of a shut-down heating system. The auction house is slowing down; there's nothing on tonight, or tomorrow. Violetta sticks her head in Restoration Rooms Two (Uncial with illuminated gold edges) and One (carved wood), but they're empty of people, and the cool insides seem like perfectly safe places for art. The electrical panel outside One is more interesting. Someone has helpfully labelled all the conduits coming out, including "Sec'ty Sys B".

She heads back toward the loading dock. There are plenty of crates left sitting around, tsk tsk, but they all have prominent printed, logoed labels stuck to them. There's a system here even if she can't see it. She saw parts of a crate in the Restoration Room; Not-Wolverine must do his own unboxing.

They seem to do a decent job of preservation. Violetta would trust a painting to these people. As for getting it back - well, it seems plausible. They're not exactly the Tower of London, for all they're doing better than the average mansion.

For example, here she is at the door next to the loading dock, and the camera is pointed at the big roll-up door as if nobody would try to steal something and _walk_ out, and there's a door-close sensor, but it's just screwed on. Unscrew it and the security system would never know you were leaving.

If you were leaving at, say, one in the morning. At five-thirty in the afternoon, she can just walk out. That's not even suspicious.

\--

##### Thursday, February 23rd, 03:43

It's _beautiful_.

Alright, Tarvek is biased. He's been pouring his soul into this for over a month, doing the twenty-hour days Violetta insists are a bad habit instead of an opportunity to get _deep_ in a flow and not even have to think about what he's doing. Hebborn might have talked about fluidity of line and the advantages of working tipsy, but there's a beautiful certainty when you're working long enough that makes everything easy and everything else irrelevant. Tarvek gets there about one day in twelve, normally. In the thick of the _Castle at Heliotropolis_ he was hitting it one day in three.

It's hard to believe this used to be the back of a cabinet. But here it is, looking as glorious and eerie as it would have when Bludtharst set on the final brushstroke.

And now they just have to provide three hundred years of wear, with the help of an oven, an engraving needle, and _the dust of centuries, obtained from the vacuum cleaner_ , as Hebborn would put it. Almost a pity. But - put it through the Wulfenbach Gallery show, and he can do a fresh copy in perfect innocence. This one is doomed to be ancient. Agatha will take care of that unfortunate part of the deal; she's better at being ruthless. An unexpected benefit of their association. He should let her know it's ready, in fact. 

In a minute. When he's calmed down and his hands aren't shaking anymore.

Ten minutes and a hasty cup of tea later, Tarvek turns off the studio lights and opens the blackout curtains. It's raining, of course. No hope of getting a taxi at this hour; he'll just have to take a nap until the trains start running. Where will Agatha be right now? Should he use euphemisms? No, it's Wednesday, she'll be at Violetta's. 

Agatha takes so long to pick up Tarvek almost gives up - he's not stupid enough to leave a voicemail - and when she does, her voice is too fuzzy to hit the hiss it's obviously going for. "This better be gaaaaaaawd," and that yawn was obviously not thrown in for effect.

"It is." Tarvek can't help but smirk. "You said to call you as soon as I was done."

A few seconds silence. Her next sentence sounds more amused than upset. "I was expecting next Monday. Havn't you ever heard of a healthy sleep schedule?"

"Oh, you know us artists," Tarvek informs her, doing an airy wave for the benefit of the drizzle and fog. "We try not to be bound by bourgeois notions like _work schedules_."

"Watch out. One of these days you'll run out of marks and then you'll have to get a real job."

"I tremble at the very notion, my lady." Alright, that was over-the-top, but he's in a giddy mood. "But I havn't even cleared out London yet."

"Just don't -" Agatha breaks off, and he can hear a voice, blunted into incomprehensibility by her phone's noise cancellation. "Who else would call me at four in the morning?" he can just make out. More static. "Well, who else would I pick up for at four in the morning. Hold on, your cousin wants to yell at you."

Tarvek takes a moment to rub the bridge of his nose and despair.

When Violetta's voice comes out of the phone he's glad he thought to hold it away from his ear. "You numbskull. Isn't there a clock on your phone? Do you not know what time normal people sleep? Some of us _have_ jobs."

"Some of you have clients so grateful for someone who knows the difference between Java and Javascript that actually hitting deadlines is an optional extra. I keep telling you to quit. Try spearphishing instead. Less being nice to idiots."

"Some of us don't have family money we can wave at if the Revenue starts asking nosy questions," Violetta growls. "How are you even awake? I thought I got all your caffeine pills."

"Do you know, they sell coffee beans in grocery stores now? And you're not limited to one coffeemaker. You can get a spare to keep in your studio."

"Prat. Maxim has the van, we can't pick up the painting until Saturday."

"That's fine. The varnish still has to dry." Tarvek finds himself grinning at the window, for all that the weather outside doesn't deserve it. "Is the offer to help you mock everyone at the Fisquay's party still on, by the way? Since it looks like I won't be busy Friday after all."

"Absolutely. Meet me here at five. Wear jewelry, it'll give them conniptions."

\--

##### Friday, February 24th, 08:24

The cup of tea on Gil's desk is still warm, and the soft beige shade that suggests too much milk. It's a paper Costa Coffee cup with one of those useless corrugated heat wrappers. Very carefully, without touching the cup itself, he spins the electric bill it's leaving a damp brown ring on. The other side of the cup doesn't have an explanation either. 

Boris might bring him tea just to be nice, but he's on holiday. Who else has keys? Has he somehow annoyed the cleaning service enough to take horrible revenge? He did drop an ink bottle on the tile, but he got most of it up himself with paper towels. 

Of course, Agatha hadn't _needed_ keys, and he seems to be on her good side. Gil looks around just in case she's lurking behind the curtains. 

She isn't, but while Gil is looking a hand falls over his eyes. He yelps, and kicks out reflexively, but doesn't connect; instead there's a peal of laughter and his arm is yanked behind his back. "Surprise!"

"Dupree." Gil winces. 

"That's right, it's me again! And I even brought you tea. Wasn't that nice of me?"

"Depends. What did you put in it?" Gil folds his arms and glares at the curtains, because if he turns around right now she'll be grinning. There's something off-putting and terrible about her grin.

Dupree sniffs. "Milk, duh. And I got coffee for me because I only got in last night at two, and I still got up to come tell you what I found out right away. Wasn't that nice of me? You should give me a bonus. Danger money."

At that Gil has to turn around, so he can glare at her properly. She's in her usual neat pantsuit, gold jewelry, and thick-soled boots; if there was blood involved in the finding out she at least bothered to shower and change. "You don't get danger money for putting other people in danger, Dupree."

"You sure?" From the way Dupree raises an eyebrow, grin falling away, Gil has a sinking premonition of her next words. "Because there's a guy I really want to eviscerate now. C'mon, let's go talk in the vault."

It's not really a vault, but the back storage room is insulated to the point of soundproofness, has its own code keypad, and most relevantly, has no windows. Gil locks the door behind them, and Dupree perches on the examining table and gulps her coffee like an alcoholic with a flask of vodka. "So I found out who ordered the hit," she starts. 

Gil takes a few seconds to process this. The idea is big and horrible, and his mind shies away from it. "It was a hit?"

"Yes, it was a hit, dumbass." Dupree is glaring at him now. "We knew it was a hit. I ran all the way to Zurich crossing off guys who hated your dad's guts, I called in a favour from the Camorra, I got fucking Tryggvassen to go ask nosy questions. And I finally get my so-called buddy at Scotland Yard to tell me what kind of car a couple hundred low-rent thugs drive so I can go bang heads together, and it takes me a week to track down all the ones with red Ford Fiestas. Or flatmates with red Ford Fiestas. And guess what? It wasn't even a guy on our list."

There's a cliche in comic books where someone in the grips of strong emotion dents a doorknob from the strength of their nervous grip. It always struck Gil as a little ridiculous. If real doorknobs were that weak, he would be denting one now. 

He decides not to ask how Dupree got from the hitman stupid enough to use his own car, even with the plates covered, to the mastermind. Stupid a word as that might be. It probably involved an intermediary. It almost certainly involved threats of grievous bodily harm, and Gil is queasy enough right now. Instead he says, "Who's the surprise enemy?"

"Martellus von Blitzengaard."

The name takes a few seconds for Gil to place. Old money, does bronze sculptures mostly of his dogs. Bought a Van Boucle and three Rembrandt prints from them last October, seemed perfectly satisfied. Gil can't imagine what his motive was. 

Dupree takes another swig of coffee, then goes on, voice tight and controlled, "The trouble is, all the hard evidence I have is that he gave this guy a Rembrandt print, and one email that's about at turbulent-priest levels of plausible deniability." 

"Which you can't exactly tell the police how you got." Gil winces. He expected Dupree, certain it wasn't a random hit-and-run, to turn something up the police missed, but he'd entertained optimistic visions of her dragging the perp by the ear to the station to confess. "Would they at least question him over an anonymous tip?"

"He'd talk his way out of it. I don't want to annoy him. I want this guy strung up by his achilles tendons." At some point Dupree set down her coffee on the scanner bed; her hands are clenched tight, knucklebones standing out. "But." She takes a deep breath; the admission is obviously painful. "I don't think I can do it without getting caught. He doesn't just have those stupid mutts for security. So if you want him dead, it's gonna take a while."

"Uh." Gil forces himself to let go of the doorknob. "We hired you to do moving and organizing, not murder." And murder is horribly wrong, but he doesn't think pointing that out would help.

"Plus other duties as required. This place would fall apart without me, you know that." She rolls her eyes.

"Exactly. So please, _please_ don't get arrested."

Dupree sighs, slumping forward a little. "Fine. Let your mobster friends have all the fun."

He could, couldn't he? The idea tightens on Gil's brain, now it's been pointed out, like/ the nagging pain of a stone in his shoe. There are Syldavian significant-pause-businessmen who've been playing cards with Gil since he was nine and who would probably be happy to line up a hit on the guy who tried for Klaus. 

But Gil can't quite bring himself to have someone murdered, even if he quite happily got drawn into massive art fraud that could wreck his career and ruin the gallery. For which he hasn't even finished the catalogue description. Or the rest of the catalogue, which he'll have to rearrange because of the forged _Cambist_. And he hasn't so much as done the layout sketch for this Sunday's page. And if he thinks too hard about any of that he'll give himself a splitting headache and not get anything done on account of being lying down in a dark room waiting for the pain to go away.

\--

##### Friday, February 24, 22:12

Please don't come to opening night, Lars said. Tech Week is fine, but actual Opening Night will give me an anxiety attack, Lars said. So Agatha is sitting at an overpriced pub six blocks from the theatre, burning off her nervous energy by sketching costumes. She started with a variation of Lars's costume that showed off his thighs better, which was tricky given how high-cut the costume designer already cut his tunic. She's just finished an improbable version of Aedith as Maleficient when her phone starts to vibrate.

Gil's voice, low and cautious. "Is Charlie there?" 

"No, but I'm at the pub," Agatha says. _So don't say anything incriminating too loudly._ "Lars should be along in twenty minutes."

"Fine, I'll make it quick." His voice is low and tense, like he's holding back a growl. "We might have to find a new buyer. I just got off the phone with Oublenmach. He's withdrawn his bid for _The Cambist_."

"The what?" The glass almost slips out of Agatha's hand, but she's good at not letting things drop. 

"The one not by Rembrandt, you can look it up. We talked Rudolf Selnikov out of it and sent it out for cleaning, but the restorers said he'd given us a modern fake." She can hear Gil's heavy breaths. "I hadn't told Selnikov yet, much less Oublenmach. But he found out somehow and now he doesn't trust me. He was - supercilious." Gil takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry about this, I just need a few days to think."

Agatha knows exactly what _The Cambist_ is. She made a convincing modern fake over the holidays. She left it in Rudolf Selnikov's safe the night before she met Gil at the auction viewing. The real thing left the country in Jorgi's luggage last week, and by now should be in the very private gallery of a certain lady with banking interests. And she really should admit that to Gil, but not right now. Right now she has to think too. Fortunately, Agatha is good with a deadline. 

She drains her glass. "We'll think of something," she says. "There must be dozens of people who want their own castle." Who knew about the Cambist job? Could Selnikov reasonably suspect he'd been burgled? Maxim might be a bad driver, but he knew how to keep a secret. The buyer had contacted Jorgi herself, and this wasn't her first purchase. Was this the one time she was stupid enough to boast? If it was they'd never know; let it go. _The Cambist_ had waited for its trip in Gkika's secret safe, wrapped in a blanket, safe from any prying eyes. Agatha had mentioned the heist, but only to Violetta and Tarvek -

Who were spending this evening at a fancy party. The kind someone might invite a real estate magnate to.

Oh, that _weasel_.

Agatha flips to a fresh page in her sketchbook and spins her pencil between her fingers. Gil hasn't hung up yet, but he must be getting nervous about how long she's been quiet. "Are you busy tomorrow?"

"Not at all." Gil sounds wary. Good instincts. 

"Good. Meet me at Mamma's at eleven. We can talk on the way."

Restlessly, almost without her conscious intention, Agatha's hand starts sketching a swooping set of curves, the shape of the causeway up to the Castle at Heliotropolis. She can imagine it all too easily, as surely as if she'd looked up Heliotropolis on Google Street View. 

\--

##### Saturday, February 25th, 12:03

The euphoria of finishing a masterwork faded somewhere between Thursday morning and Friday noon, when Tarvek woke up for good to the unpleasant realization he'd agreed to escort Violetta to the Fisquay's party. By midnight he'd been keeping his smile on by sheer determination and Violetta was at least a pillowcase to the wind; by half past he gave in to the temptation to dump wine down his own jacket and retreat in apologetic disgrace. Getting out of that place was worth the cleaning bill. 

Astonishingly, things did look better in the morning. He didn't manage breakfast, but hr had a bath, did a five-minute doodle of Bludtharst giving them a thumbs-up and stuck it in his wallet to make Agatha laugh, and in general felt almost human by the time he saw the van pulling up to the studio loading dock.

To Tarvek's amazement, it's Gilgamesh Wulfenbach who climbs out of the driver's seat. Slightly more astonishing is that he smiles when he see Tarvek, and gives a little wave, like he's genuinely happy to see him. Alright, they'd parted ways at their last meeting without actually punching each other. There had been a mumbled suggestion of talking later. No actual talk. But it's Gilgamesh; maybe he shouldn't be surprised the forgetfulness was real. Tarvek glares at him anyway, for form's sake. "What are doing here?"

"Heavy lifting," Gil declares, grin not wavering.

It's a square meter of wood wrapped in three old bedsheets. Violetta could pick it up with one hand. But Agatha steps out of the passenger side then, and her look is intense enough that Tarvek's protest dies in his throat.

They get up to his studio, and back down, by the freight elevator; the pseudo-Impressionist in the next studio is playing the Sex Pistols at full volume again but the hallways are blessedly empty. London traffic is as impenetrable as ever, but they're at Mamma's before Gil runs out of cheerful attempts at starting a conversation. Agatha is opening up her basement safe when Gil puts in, sounding a little nervous, "Can I see? I know it can't be photographed until it's baked," he hastily adds. "But I just want to know. What it looked like new."

"I don't see why not." Her eyebrows narrow, and Agatha glances over at Tarvek. Well, it is his painting. As if he could resist the pleading look in Gil's eyes. He's done more stupid things at the urging of that pleading look than -

He might as well be gracious.

It would be nice to dramatically whip aside the sheet, but in fact it takes an awkward struggle and some assistance from Agatha before the _Castle at Heliotropolis_ is out. This isn't its proper setting. It deserves an imposing stone wall and bright daylight to bring the stormlight sky into proper relief. But fluorescent lights and concrete are apparently good enough for Gil. He stares, gaping like a goldfish, with every appearance of genuine amazement. 

Tarvek can't help but smirk. "Not bad for a half-baked plagarist, don't you think?" Surreptitiously he nudges the piled-up sheet aside with his foot.

The expression on Gil's face twists from goldfish to kicked-puppy. "I never thought - it isn't - Look, can we just forget about all that? I think you're brilliant. I think I won't have any trouble convincing someone you were Bludtharst."

"Good to know." That was meant to be a sarcastic snap. It really was. "At least you have taste."

Gilgamesh holds out a hand. "Truce? At least long enough for a toast? You can pick," he adds, with a grin. "I still don't have taste in drinks."

"Fine. Gin-and-tonics. Sapphire gin."

"Deal," Agatha says. She's already lifting the sheets back around the Castle. "Maybe if I get you drunk you'll admit why you hate each other's guts." She picks up the painting like it weighs nothing at all, slides it neatly behind a crate labelled 'Chateau Sophie del Pieve Gobbi' and which might even contain some, and shuts the safe, in neat fluid motions like she'd practiced it. 

Tarvek shakes his head. "I don't want to talk about it. Let's stick to the toast."

Upstairs, they huddle in back, hidden from most of the dining room by the giant fishtank which for some reason contains exactly one lobster. It's Gil who raises his glass first. "To profitable business ventures," he intones.

They clink their glasses. They drink.

"May this one be extraordinary so," Agatha adds. "It's going to take enough effort."

Tarvek takes another drink, just to distract himself. "Don't look at me. My part's over."

"Well, don't go running off to Tahiti just yet. We don't do advances." Agatha is grinning like a cat over the rim of her glass. 

"Tahiti wasn't very interesting when Gauguin went there," Tarvek informs them. "I might run away to Greece."

Agatha raises her glass, "To new horizons."

They clink their glasses. They drink.

For some reason Gilgamesh is staring down at his gin-and-tonic, looking fretful. It doesn't suit him. He's an optimist at heart. Tarvek stamps down the impulse to ruffle Gil's hair, charmingly messy though it is, and settles for smirking at him. "What about you? Going to take a nice long holiday when it's over?"

"Maybe I should," Gil says to the table. "Give my father a chance to clean up without me getting in the way." 

Agatha blinks at him. "Clean up what?"

"The mess I'm probably making of the gallery." If he slumped any lower he'd be face-down on the table. Tarvek takes another drink. Who told the boy he was still allowed to be so - luminary? It's not fair at all, especially at the same table with Agatha's magnetic determination, even if she has it turned down. Gil goes on, "Except he's coming back in a week. He'd have come back already if Gkika weren't distracting him for me. And I don't even have the _catalogue_ done." It's almost a wail of despair.

Either they know each other better than Tarvek thought, or Agatha just can't resist: she ruffles Gil's hair. It doesn't even get a token complaint. "We'll get you your photograph," she tells him. "How's the rest of it, at least? You have some good pieces?"

"Well, I don't have _Cambist._ " It's a good thing Tarvek is already sipping his gin-and-tonic; it keeps his twitch of surprise from showing. So Selnikov was trying to get it off his hands after all. "But I have that Valpolicella we've been keeping out front - you saw that. And a paired portrait of a husband and wife, unknown student of Rembrandt, unknown subjects. Actually I was thinking of holding them back and doing some more research." Gil perks up at this idea. "If Father agrees. They're in really nice condition, though, and we actually have both. Oh! And two different sketches by D'Omas. Of people. Of the same lady, in fact, which is downright weird. Maybe we should give the show a name for once. Statistically Improbable Old Masters."

"Artists Being Strange," Agatha suggests, and lifts her almost-empty glass. "A toast. To the improbable." 

They clink their glasses. They drink.

The next quarter-hour passes in a pleasant haze. Gil explains the provenance of half the Wulfenbach Gallery's March show, and Agatha flags down a waitress for three more gin-and-tonics, and Tarvek lets himself be wafted away on Gilgamesh's hypnotically enthusiastic voice. Possibly he should have had lunch. Or breakfast. The gin-and-tonics are hitting him entirely too hard.

In fact, Gil's hand descending on his shoulder makes Tarvek sway sideways. Gil is grinning, like he usually is. "You should come to the opening," he says. "I bet you'd get some good leads."

"There's the issue of provenance," Tarvek points out. "You know how much of a mess my father's records are. We don't even know what he sold." And that's a blatant lie, but they're technically in public. 

"So look for genuine art lovers." Gil tilts his head. "Do you get a lot of sales for your own work? Since it's so - " He waves his hands, apparently just drunk enough that whatever word he was looking for is lost. Baroque? Old-fashioned?

Well, it's not important. Tarvek uncurls his fingers from his glass; he feels properly dizzy now. He should drink more if he's lost his tolerance this much. "I don't," he pronounces, and then corrects it to, "haven't. There are limits to the popularity of living artists." 

"Maybe you should give it more of a try."

"Don't be absurd." The words are hard to pick out; Tarvek feels like he's trying to talk and play sudoku simultaneously. "Who would want to be Tarvek Sturmvoraus when they could be Rembrandt Van Rijn?"

That's a longstanding ambition of his, quixotic as it might be. Give back the Storm on the Sea of Galilee if he has to make it himself. Or at least the Landscape with Cottages. He'd need Agatha's help. Bribe or persuade. His head is swimming. Gil says, "Yes, but your collection won't last forever." It will last long enough Tarvek can afford a few months on a sheer pointless vanity. Charity. Take your pick.

He needs some fresh air. He shoves his barstool back, pushes off it, and slips all the way to the floor as the swimming blackness rolls in like an oncoming tide.

\--

##### Saturday, February 25th, 14:55

"I'm not entirely sure I'm okay with this, is all I'm saying."

"Well, if you don't like it, leave and I'll take it from there. Over there." Agatha points at a pale wood highback chair, shoved in the corner as an afterthought. 

It takes a little work, but Gil manages to tug the chair out from the wall with his foot. Agatha is rummaging in a toolbox, muttering under her breath. Gil offers, "It still feels different. Like we've crossed some kind of line. Everything else was business."

"This is business. I'll take the glasses." 

It's more difficult than he would have expected to set an unconscious body in a chair starting from a bridal carry, but it's possible. Gil moves slowly; it's not obvious under all those fashionable layers but Tarvek is heavy, limbs thick and muscular. Gil eases Tarvek's glasses off his nose, and hands them to Agatha, who stuffs them in her jacket pocket. She has rope slung over her arm, but the first thing she does, instead of tying him to the chair, is unbutton his shirt.

Gil looks away, repulsed for no reason he can name. Then he makes himself look back. He's up to his neck in this. Agatha sighs, lets Tarvek slump forward in the chair as she works the shirt off his wrists, then shoves him back. Tarvek is still rag-doll limp, not even noticing the touch. Agatha crouches down and starts wrapping the rope around his ankles. 

Gil bites his lip. "Um," he says. "He's not in any danger, is he?"

"Of course he is. But if he doesn't lie to me on top of blabbing to the mark, it won't come to anything."

"I meant medically! I've never given someone barbiturates before!"

"You still havn't," Agatha informs him. She rolls her shoulders back, stands up, and leans down again to adjust his wrists. "It was a double dose prescription benzodiazepine. His prescription, in fact. Safe as houses."

"That's a lot less reassuring simile since the real estate bubble." But Gil can't quite muster the energy to be upset. If he was going to be upset he should have gotten upset before the part where he agreed to talk Tarvek into having a drink with them so Agatha could drug it. Or, maybe, before he got involved in a forgery scheme with someone who has friends in the Syldavian mafia. The trouble is, _Gil_ has friends in the Syldavian mafia. It warps one's perspective. He tells himself, very firmly, that Agatha knows he's squeamish and isn't going to do anything that draws blood in front of him, and she just took Tarvek's shirt off to make him feel vulnerable and scared. Right. This situation isn't going to get worse for his being here, but it might get worse for his leaving.

Agatha's finished with the rope - no. That's his mind skittering away from the situation again. Agatha's finished tying Tarvek to the chair. She stands back, frowning. "He should wake up soon. All that jostling."

He's breathing regularly, at least. 

When Tarvek does wake up they're sitting on the floor behind him - so he doesn't know who's there, Agatha had explained with off-putting casualness. Gil hadn't asked how many interrogations she had run. He watches Tarvek's head jerk, just a little, hears him gasp, and then his head falls again, as if he'd only been shifting in his sleep. But it's enough for Agatha to clap her hands together, noise startlingly loud in the quiet workshop. "Oh, good!" she announces. "You're up!"

They're in a windowless basement. He won't know how much time he's been out.

Tarvek doesn't move for several seconds. When he speaks his voice is almost a croak. "What the hell?"

"Purgatory," Agatha says, and crosses her arms, sternly, even though Tarvek can't see it. "Hell can be arranged later."

The answer comes in a weary sigh. "Agatha, I don't know what you're planning, but -"

"I don't know what you're planning either. If I do, ten minutes from now, you get to walk out of here." Agatha rocks onto her knees, then upright, in one continuous motion. She makes a quick patting motion at Gil, _stay there_ , and storms - there's no better word for it - around the chair, to where she can look Tarvek in the face. "You know what I found out last night?"

"Obviously not." Tarvek manages to sound supercilious, even half-naked and tied to a chair. Gil isn't sure why that makes his guts twist sideways. "Bad news, I take it?"

"Right." Agatha glares. "Did you know Selnikov was about to sell _Cambist_?"

"I - what?"

"Except that I relieved it of him a month ago. And guess what, the sale just fell through." Somehow, her glare gets sharper. Gil is glad she explained this part to him in the van; he would have gasped in shock otherwise. "He found out the painting Selnikov was trying to sell was a modern fake. _Somehow_. And that spooked him enough to back out of the Castle deal."

"You mean - " Tarvek just sounds confused, but Agatha leans in and puts her hands on his shoulders. "I didn't know," he yelps. "I would have told you."

"So was it a shot in the dark, then?"

"What? I don't -" Agatha's hands are still on his shoulders, but he breaks off, gulping. 

"What did you tell Oublenmach last night?" Agatha's voice is almost a hiss. "And _why_?"

"I didn't tell him anything," Tarvek yelps. "I barely talked to him."

Agatha's hands are tightening on his bare shoulders. "Are you sure? If you were just being stupid, you can still walk out. Maybe limping a little." So she's going to be both cops for now. Alright. Gil will just sit still here and feel guilty.

"Do you or do you not think I'm a _professional?_ Because blabbing is an amatuer mistake." Somehow Tarvek pulls up an indignant tone.

"And you'd never make a mistake like that," Agatha agrees, sounding cheerful enough. She slides one hand into his hair, and _yanks_. "Which means it must have been on purpose."

"Or not at all! Ask Violetta! She was there!" The indignant tone is slipping; his voice wavers. 

"Apparently she wandered off to watch people necking in the garden for most of an hour. She didn't think you needed watching. Are you just trying to kill the deal so you can make a better one?" 

"Agatha, I swear, I didn't say anything to anyone, you can trust me, I'd never do that to you." 

Agatha makes a little wave of her hand, and Gil clambers to his feet. "And why can she trust you?" he growls. "You commit fraud for a living."

For some reason this makes Tarvek give a horrible little whimper.

"Just admit it," Agatha says. She has both hands on his head now, one pulling it back and one resting on his chin like she's about to try choking him, and seeing if the truth comes out with his recovered breath. "Only seven people knew about the _Cambist_ deal. _I trusted you._ Prove I wasn't _completely_ wrong."

"I never said anything," Tarvek whispers, and it turns into a coughing fit. Agatha lets go of his head and waits for it to subside, while Gil finds himself looking around for water - there's a laundry sink over next to one of the cabinets, there's an upturned plastic cup on the shelf above it, that will probably do - except that the coughing doesn't exactly stop. Instead it turns into a piteous set of sobs.

Oh hell.

Agatha seems surprised; she lets go and steps back from the chair, blinking. Gil tries desperately to think of something to do to fix this. He's Good Cop, right? Good cop would offer comfort. Water still counts. He takes the cup, and a towel that doesn't look too oily, and awkwardly tries to dab away the tears. 

That's apparently sufficient to interrupt; Tarvek lifts his head enough to glare at Gil through his damp, red eyes. "You," he snaps, voice hoarse and scratchy. "I should have known you'd just jump at the chance to hurt me."

Ignore it. Wounded cats claw at anything. Gil holds out the cup. "Um. Water?"

"Only if you drink it first."

Gil takes a deep gulp. The water tastes of old piping. Tarvek's eyes widen - apparently that had been rhetorical - but he takes a drink anyway when Gil presses the cup to his lips, and submits without protest to having the rest of his tears dabbed away.

When he's done, Agatha steps forward, and for a second he thinks she's about to slap Tarvek, but she just threads a hand in his hair again. "I want to trust you," she says. "But you have to admit the suspect list is pretty short, and you have the best motive."

Tarvek doesn't answer. His eyes are narrowed. If he hadn't just been making smart remarks Gil would be checking his pulse.

Nobody speaks.

When Tarvek finally raises his head, Gil can only describe the look on his face as calculating. "Gilgamesh," he says, and just hearing it gives Gil a guilty start. "I assume you're in on this because Selnikov tried to sell the painting _through your gallery._ "

His father's gallery. "And heavy lifting."

That makes Tarvek roll his eyes, but he lets it go. "Did you send it out to Mezzasalma and Mittelmind for restoration?"

"Yes. They noticed the fake. Er. I didn't." How had he known the name? They weren't involved in his business, were they?

"There's a fence called Hristo Tiktoffen," Tarvek says quietly. "He mostly works with antiques. He's blackmailing their apprentice, and Oublenmach is his friend from university."

Eventually Agatha asks, "Blackmailing her with what?"

"How should I know? It wouldn't be very good blackmail if everyone knew about it." 

"Prove you aren't just making up names." She folds her arms.

"You have my phone?" Agatha nods, scowling. "Tiktoffen is in the contacts list. Call him. Tell him that you got the number from Ken Franklin, and that you're interested in purchasing - Gil? You were at their workshop. What else were Mittelmind and Mezzasalma working on? Something small, generic, something you'd describe instead of name."

It takes Gil a few seconds to sort through his memories. "Incunabula," he says. "There were a few books. One was a Nuremberg Chronicle. Most common incunabulum in existence. Expensive, but not so rare you couldn't show your friend."

"Good. Agatha, ask for that. He'll say he knows where to get one, and doesn't know how much it will cost."

Because he knows about all the things that go through the Mittelmind and Mezzasalma workshop, and he would still have to commision the theft. Some people did keep their rare books in secure rooms. Agatha makes Tarvek's phone appear, spinning it in her hand like someone doing tricks with a throwing knife. "Passcode?"

"Can I have my glasses back?" 

"Not yet. Don't test me."

"Worth a try. Seven three two zero."

"Good. I'll be right back. Gil, make sure he doesn't do anything stupid." She storms past them, and a few seconds later they can hear her footsteps making the ancient stairway scream.

Tarvek slumps forward, as much as he can with the rope wrapped around his chest. "Don't do anything stupid," he repeats to the floor. "I don't know how she expects me to do _anything_."

"She thinks you're creative." Gil bites his lip.

"Not that creative."

It's weirdly comforting to listen to him complain and snap. Gil isn't going to admit it, but the sobbing fit shook him. "Do you need anything? More water?"

"Not right now, thank you." Tarvek lifts his head. "You know, you're doing abominably at despising me and thinking I'm an irredeemable scoundrel."

"Except for the part where I believed you'd betrayed us to Oublenmach and I collaborated in your kidnapping?"

"Yes, but when I explained, you believed me right away. You've never been any good at hiding what you're thinking, Gilgamesh. I could tell that much even without my glasses."

To hell with it; Gil drops to the floor, folding his legs. It keeps him from pacing, and it gives him a slightly better chance of seeing Tarvek's eyes. "I'm willing to admit Agatha might have overreacted."

"And yet I'm still tied to the chair."

" _Might have_ , not _did_."

"Understandable." Tarvek sighs. His next words sound like they're being dredged up from some dark place deep in his brain, and fighting the attempt. "Are you at least willing to forget the mess at university?"

Gil swallows hard. He'd hoped, naively, that they would simply never mention it again, and maybe build some kind of fruitful working relationship that didn't involve the past. Tarvek has a way of hitting his soft spots. "It doesn't matter, does it? You quit anyway."

It's not an apology, on either side. But Tarvek nods. "I suppose not."

"Yeah. Er." Sitting down was a good idea; it means he can't shuffle his feet.

"How about you? Should I be calling you Doctor Wulfenbach now?"

"I guess technically I am, but it's not like anybody calls me that ever except at the bank." It makes him want to sink into the floor, coming from people older than he is. "You've been - doing alright?"

"With obvious exceptions," Tarvek drawls. "But yes. Business is good. It's amazing how many people want Renaissance silverpoint sketches and don't want to ask questions."

"Have you ever sold _any_ original work? I mean things you sign with your own name," he hurriedly adds, before Tarvek can protest that he's not a _copyist_. "I mean, you've got such a good eye. You should get some credit for it."

"Not under my own name, no." And now he sounds tired and too-quiet.

Gil is still struggling to find something to say that won't kill the conversation any deader, when the stairs start to wail again.

There's something clutched in Agatha's outstretched hand. Tarvek's glasses. She snaps them open, pulls his head back with a lot less viciousness than she had ten minutes ago, and slides them one-handed onto his nose. "You're tentatively vindicated," she announces. "Hristo Tiktoffen exists and he offered to sell me the book."

" _Thank_ you. Do I get my shirt back now or are we switching to erotic roleplay?"

Her mouth opens. Snaps shut. "Alright, I deserved that."

"You're welcome. Let me up?"

She gets his hands free and then steps over to offer Gil a hand up from the floor, leaving Tarvek to unwind the rope from his ankles. He moves with so much aplomb it makes Gil wonder if he'd been playing up the crying fit, standing up, rolling his shoulders, and dusting off his trousers. Agatha hands him his shirt; he buttons it, staring at nothing in particular. "Where are my shoes?"

"In the van."

"Was that necessary?"

"I'm sure Gil can carry you back if you're afraid of getting your socks wet." 

He concedes the point with a rueful shrug. "I don't suppose you could send out for lunch? Because I think our next discussion had better stay very private, and I have a feeling this place is very private."

Gil cuts in, "What are we discussing, exactly?"

The blink that gets from Agatha makes him feel small and stupid. "Our new mark," she says. "Did you think we were just going to walk away?"

\--


	6. Chapter 6

##### Sunday, February 26th, 9:54

This isn't the first time Violetta has used the Really Big Oven,, but it's the first time she's used it in six months and so she has to start by putting it back together. Zeetha watches in fascination as she screws the legs onto the base and checks the thermal insulation for cracks. "Do you have to do this with every painting?"

"Nope. The ones that are small enough, I can just bake in the regular oven." 

"Huh. How big a painting can this thing handle?"

"One hundred eighty centimeters by one hundred nine centimeters." They'd built it around a decorative fake of Andronicus's _Battle of Arnemuiden_ , which Agatha had given to Maxim to impress girls with. The kind of girls who would be impressed by _Battle of Arnemuiden_ , anyway. Maxim had interesting tastes. 

_Castle at Heliotropolis_ is leaning against the wall of her kitchen. They'd stopped for a while just to admire it, before they ruined its youthful beauty. They take it by the edges, very carefully, and set it face-up in the box. Violetta lays the grid over it, and starts clipping on heaters. 

"It's a damn shame," Zeetha abruptly says. "People should pay more for something in good condition."

"Well, it was painted three hundred years ago. You'd expect a little wear and tear." Violetta flips the switch.

These are low-powered heating elements; they'd struggle to boil water. The only immediate sign of life is the fan whirring up to speed.

"What now?"

Violetta grinaces. "We close the lid and leave it alone for eighty hours. Except that if the smoke alarm goes off we run to beat out the flames with _that_." She points at the fireproof blanket. 

Zeetha crouches down to run her hands over it. "Does that happen often?"

"Never so far. But it'd be stupid not to take precautions, right?" Violetta bites her lip. "Thanks for helping out. Usually it's just me and Agatha taking shifts."

"No worries. We're friends, right?" Zeetha claps her on the shoulder. "Besides, now I can bug you to tell me aaaall about your adventures."

"They're not really that adventurous. Agatha says an interesting job is one you havn't planned enough. Or one that's gone horribly wrong," she feels compelled to add. "That's only happened to us once, though. We barely got out of the place. Had to spend twenty minutes hiding in a coat closet. It felt like all night. I almost quit in a huff - it was only the second time we'd done a job together, so I didn't know it wasn't normal to have things go kablooie that way."

Zeetha drops into the armchair, somehow contriving to land with one ankle propped on the other knee and her chin on one hand, grinning like a lunatic. "What changed your mind?" 

"This is going to sound really stupid," Violetta warns her. She settles onto the arm of the sofa, trying to control her blush.

"I've probably heard worse."

"Well. We'd only been dating for three months. And I guess the new relationship energy was taking a while to burn off. And I thought, what if she breaks up with me? Her _boyfriend_ steals fancy paintings with her. And I didn't want to lose to a boy."

Sure enough, Zeetha is smothering giggles. "That's _adorable_."

"It's idiotic."

"That's okay. It was for love." Zeetha has her chin on both hands now, and the expression of a cat bringing home a mouse. "Do you want to hear the story of how my parents met?"

"Sure. Spill." If she's bringing it up now, it must be suitably idiotic.

"Well, the first thing you have to remember is, this was during the Cold War ..."

\--

... and all Communist governments were friends, at least in theory. So, when the latest dictator of the People's Republic of San Theodoros appealed for aid to put down an inconvenient outbreak of guerillas, they called for help from the Eastern Bloc. Help came from Bourduria, in the form of an artillery company plus materiel, nine only-slightly-obsolete Stinger combat helicopters, and a trainer for their pilots. Not much. Bourduria had their own troubles.

The trainer was being exiled, and knew it. He'd spoken his mind to the wrong people. People like that don't sit quietly and wait for a change in government back home. They hitch a ride between army bases on a truck full of small arms and ammunition, force the driver out at gunpoint, then drive off through the jungle looking for guerillas.

The guerillas ambushed him four hours later, and brought him to see their captain, Zantabraxus Reina. "I hope you like my present," was the first thing he said to her.

She liked it. And the radio codes, and the advice on getting rid of the helicopters before anyone found qualified pilots. But she didn't quite trust him, so Zantabraxus sent him along on a raid she gave very low odds of success, to free a handful of captured guerillas being moved between prisons. 

This time he brought her an army captain's head on a stick, the same stick the man had used to hurry his prisoners.

Zantabraxus decided to keep him. After seeing the head, nobody argued. 

\--

"And he fought beside her for the rest of the Green Revolution." Zeetha almost looks wistful, but it vanishes beneath a quizzical scowl. "Which we really should have come up with a better name for. You know it doesn't even redirect to a disambiguation page on Wikipedia? We're stuck in 'For the revolution in San Theodoros see'. That's not very dignified for a sovereign nation."

"It's not the sort of thing you get to pick."

"Still." 

Zeetha is fiddling with the end of her long green braid. She hasn't talked about her father before. As if he were a sore point. Violetta can't help but ask, "Did he - not survive the revolution?"

"Oh, he lived. He walked out later. I guess Mother just wasn't as fun once she was _in_ the government." Zeetha waves her hand, an airy dismissal of his fickleness. "But! My point is, he stuck around for stuff that could actually have gotten him blown to pieces, and he did it for love. Also spite. So sticking with something that might get you arrested but might also get you lots of money, because you're doing it with someone you love, isn't that stupid."

Violetta thinks about this one for a while. "You know," she finally says, "I think I understand now why you didn't freak out when I told you what Agatha does for a living."

\--

##### Thursday, March 1st, 16:34

The baked _Castle at Heliotropolis_ looks much older, almost ancient. Badly in need of cleaning. But not by Mittelmind and Mezzasalma, oh no; they can do surface cleaning right here in the gallery and that's exactly what Gil will propose, to keep anyone else from getting suspicious.

It's a good photograph. She must have done it on a bedsheet, but Violetta made it look neat and professional.

Gil stretches it out to fill the page, and hits Ctrl-S with a vicious sense of satisfaction. Now his father won't be able to work himself sick again on the show. All the complicated parts are done. He pulled it together without help from his father or Boris, and he didn't even miss a page of _Homarus Errant_ while he was at it.

He didn't put the party together, though. That was all Gkika. 

After a moment's hesitation, Gil shuts his laptop. He doesn't need to leave for an hour, but if he leaves right now, he can stop for a London Fog on the way. Gil rather thinks he's earned it.

\--

##### Thursday, March 1st, 19:03

Dupree and Gkika are on either side of his father on the sofa, laughing at something. Gil isn't sure he wants to know what. Daiyu and her grandfather are in the kitchen mixing drinks. That leaves Boris, who's leaning against the bookcase, hor d'oeuvre plate balanced in his prosthetic hand, frowning. 

He looks like he needs a listening ear. Gil is pants at that, always has been, but he's the only person handy, and how sad is it that their social circle is this small? Three employees and two friends. He tries for a friendly smile. "How was Italy?"

"Fascinating," Boris allows, "but it's been there for several thousand years. It would 'have waited six months. You could have called me."

Gil shuffles his feet. He shouldn't feel bad about _not_ interrupting someone's holiday. "I figured you were overdue for a break. It wasn't anything I couldn't handle."

"No, but you've been skipping more sleep than is healthy. Fried cheese cube?" He presses the plate in Gil's general direction.

Letting Gkika plan the party was a bad idea. She thinks food should put meat on your bones, and never mind what it did to your arteries. Gil takes one anyway, so he can spin the toothpick to distract himself. "I'll catch up," he offers. "I'm taking tomorrow completely off. You and Father can arm-wrestle over who gets to go through last month's acquisitions first."

"He can have them. I'll take Daiyu's spreadsheets." 

Of course he will. The spreadsheets on which Gil has added a completely imaginary purchase price for a Bludtharst that never existed. He takes another gulp of wine.

"Hey!" And now Dupree is leaning back and waving at them. "Come tell His Nibs about the cavalier from Milton Keynes."

"I told him already," Gil calls back.

"Not the fun part!"

Gil groans. His father has turned around on the sofa, looking curious. "I thought that was an ordinary pickup job? Portrait of an unknown subject?"

"The portrait was perfectly ordinary," Gil admitted. "It was just. Uh. Where we had to pick it up from."

Dupree puts in a cackle. "I didn't think Gil's face could turn that colour."

He might as well get this over with or Dupree will make it sound ten times worse. "It was in the house of an old lady with no taste. She'd picked it up at auction for a song, back in the sixties, and it inspired her to start a collection. Not of eighteenth-century paintings. Of life-size men. Most of them were cheap reproductions - there was a canvas print of the Holbein Henry the Eighth, and an actual velvet Elvis, and a cardboard standee of Harrison Ford as Han Solo pasted onto this science-fictiony background. She'd hung them all around her living room." He stops there, trying to think of the blandest way to phrase the rest.

"Go on," Dupree says, with a grin that would be more at home on a shark. "Tell them what _else_ she had hanging up."

Gil coughs. "Copies. Painted copies of the whole collection. She'd done them herself. Only she must have figured she was no good at drapery, because she left out all the clothes."

From the stunned silence it seems like Klaus and Gkika are having trouble visualizing this.

"Other than that they were very well-done copies," Gil offers in desperation.

Luckily, Daiyu picks that moment to stick her head out from the kitchen. "Drinks are ready," she announces. "Mojitos?"

" _Yes please._ "

It only takes a few minutes before everyone is in the living room again, Daiyu displacing Dupree from the couch and her grandfather in the good armchair by right of age. Even Boris has pulled up a chair beside them, devouring a second plate of fried things with a look of intense concentration. The conversation is loud and boisterous and it should make Gil feel completely at home, the more so because this _is_ his home, and his father's, and it should be a relief to have his father home again.

Gil is lurking next to the bookcase and fretting.

It's the guilt, he tells himself. He's conspiring to defraud - well, they came up with a few possibilities, Agatha is investigating - of an enormous heap of money, and even if the plan is _not_ to keep pretending _Castle at Heliotropolis_ is real, his father wouldn't approve.

But there are a lot of things about Gil his father wouldn't approve of.

\--

##### Thursday, March 1st, 19:37

Her cousin's been having a bad day. Violetta can tell because not only did he make souffle, he left an unwashed bowl on the counter. 

But he hasn't said anything, so she's not going to bring it up first. She's just going to dig into the fettucini alfredo - which means he ran out of time and panicked, but it's still good so she won't complain. It's _very_ good. She may be making noises to that effect. Tarvek smirks, and Violetta narrows her eyes. "The price of dinner does _not_ come out of my ten percent."

"As if you wouldn't insist on seeing the bill of sale," her cousin says lightly. "Did it come through baking properly?"

"Of course." Violetta feels a moment's stab of guilt - Agatha knows Zeetha knows, but they didn't bother mentioning it to Tarvek. He barely knows Zeetha exists. "I'd show you a picture if you let me."

"Not yet."

 _Let the memory fade first_ , was how he had tried to explain it, and Violetta thinks she understands. Sort of. But twitting Tarvek for being an idiot is her job as his cousin, so she says, "Of course. You sensitive artistic types bruise so easily."

He twitches, and sets down his fork. Interesting. 

Violetta takes another bite, then twirls up some fettucini purely to wave it around dramatically and watch Tarvek be too polite to complain. "You need to loosen up," she tells him. "How many times have you left the flat this week? I swear, if you didn't have me to drag you places you'd never go anywhere. Just this endless loop between your flat, your studio, and Waitrose."

"Waitrose isn't obligatory. There's such a thing as grocery delivery."

"Even worse."

"I've bloody well had enough of being dragged places. Do you know what Agatha did last Saturday?"

Oh, so he _is_ going to bring it up. Interesting. "I heard about it afterwards. You have to admit, spiking your own sale is the sort of thing you'd do."

From the way he lowers his head she gets the impression Tarvek would be letting it fall to the table in despair, except that he'd get hair in his fettuccine and alfredo sauce all over his glasses. But all he says is, "Alright, but does nobody trust me not to be _stupid_? Gilgamesh was going to do all the hard work while I got on with my next project. I had it picked out, too. Set of Freidrich landscape cartoons on that lovely grey endpaper you found last summer."

"How very Romantic."

"Exactly. But now I have to help them find a new mark, and probably help with the sale, and be charming at people. Forgive me if I want to take a few days to actually unwind at home first. Aren't you always complaining that I work too hard?"

He's doing his charming smile again, the one that's befuddled art buyers and seduced lonely banker's wives who should know better and that's approximately as real as _Castle at Heliotropolis_. 

Violetta puts down her fork. "I'm complaining that you don't do anything but work. There's a subtle difference."

"Nonsense. I'm probably going to spend weeks doing _business_ instead." He drops the word into his sentence like someone picking a fly out of soup. 

"And that doesn't count as work?"

"It's much less pleasant."

He has a point, dammit. Violetta isn't an artist herself, unless you count the photography hobby, but between Tarvek and Agatha she knows how weird they get. She rolls her eyes in lieu of any more pointed comment, and applies herself to the fettucini while she waits for Tarvek to get tired of the silence.

Last night, Violetta woke up in the middle of the night to find the bed empty. There was a light coming from the bathroom, though, spilling through the half-open door and puddling on the crumpled duvet. Agatha wasn't in the bathroom. She was on the other side of the room, fingers held in front of her face for a frame.

Violetta had started to push herself upright, and Agatha hissed, "Shhhhh. Stay there."

"Why? What are you doing?"

"Memorizing," Agatha had informed her. "I can't paint in the dark."

Which wasn't the most ridiculous thing Agatha had done in the course of their relationship, not even discounting everything she'd done in the course of taking art from people who didn't deserve it. It was, in fact, pretty typical; it didn't hold a candle to, for example, picking the lock to get into a structurally unsound belltower to get a better view of the surrounding countryside. So, really, it doesn't surprise her that her cousin reacts to the idea of doing something to turn all his highly specialized hard work into actual _money_ , gobs thereof, with annoyance and dismay.

Tarvek is twirling his fork in his pasta like he actually means to take a bite when he tells her, "I'm going to Grandma's party this weekend after all. I called her up. She was _delighted_."

Well, that accounts for the general air of malaise and distraction. Violetta pats his hand. "Need me to dig out the ugly pink dress again?"

"That would count as above and beyond for your ten percent." Tarvek rolls his eyes. "Besides, I've already invited Agatha."

"For vengeance?"

"If she can make me sit in a freezing basement with no shirt on, I can put her in gold lamé for one evening."

Violetta is tempted to point out her independant invitation and claim Agatha for her own date, but it's not like she could provide better entertainment at one of Grandma's parties. 

\--

##### Saturday, March 3rd, 19:12

Agatha is sprawled out as much as it's possible to sprawl out in half a cab seat, nose wrinkled in distaste. They're going to be fashionably late. He had to hold the cab while she found her shoes. She looks gorgeous. "This is some kind of revenge kick, isn't it?"

"Only a little. I really do want to introduce you to Tweedle."

"I assume nobody knows I'm Violetta's girlfriend?"

"Most of our relatives didn't work out which team she plays for when she kissed Varpa at her book release party. They wouldn't know if you showed up with her lipstick colour all over your neck."

"She doesn't wear lipstick."

"Precisely." Tarvek grins at her. "Just say you're my friend, and they'll all make horrible unwarranted assumptions and start asking me when the wedding is and what was wrong with that nice lady with the summer house in Nice."

"Apart from the bit where the summer house had her husband in it? And he didn't know about you?" Agatha raises an eyebrow.

"Mere quibbles. So, you see, you get pre-emptive countervengeance."

Agatha rolls her eyes again. 

It's not that absurd an idea - maybe in some different world where Violetta and Varpa's romance had outlived the summer - but she deserves better, and she'll need someone more impressive than a black-sheep sketch artist if her long-term plans work out. The cute actor, maybe. He'd be good for hanging decoratively off her arm. "Be careful with - Martellus," Tarvek reminds her. They shouldn't call him Tweedle to his face. Better to break the habit now. "He's brighter than he looks."

"I know what I'm doing." Her face softens, and she pats his shoulder. "Split up right away, or let him drive you off?"

\--

##### Saturday, March 3rd, 20:17

At least she's not the most overdressed person there. Seffie - the same Seffie that Violetta got the tip about Strinbeck from, apparently - turned up in three layers of sparkling tulle, with an actual, peacock-feather-adorned _headdress_ , as if fascinators weren't absurd enough for evening wear. It's not as if this were a masquerade ball. Just a nice little family party, only thirty or forty people, celebrating the fact that Tarvek's grandmother owns a big house and fifty wine glasses.

She didn't even have to _try_ to corner Tweedle. Martellus. He made a beeline as soon as he saw her admiring the fake Manet streetscape. "Not Manet's best work," he said, with a conspiratorial little smile.

"Not Manet's at all," she told him. "See that gradient on the window? Someone thought it looked more realistic that way."

His smile broadened, like she'd passed his test. 

And now he's telling her in painful detail about the gallery he plans to open, while they lurk in a corner between a firmly-shut window and a potted palm, watching a handful of middle-aged men playing billiards and twice a handful standing around offering advice. "You'd be surprised how much you can buy in Beijing," he says. "People die all the time, and their heirs don't often have the same collecting tastes."

"I wouldn't know." Agatha shrugs. "I generally don't go far from London. Boot sales are a fantasy, everyone knows that."

"Boot sales?" Tweedle's lip curls in distaste. "Who bothers? I'm not going to stock a gallery from boot sales. There are plenty of art buyers now who understand _provenance_. You can't do like the Wulfenbach Gallery and just say 'from a private collection' anymore. You have to be ready to tell a story."

She's read catalogues like that, that talk about how the last owners of a painting bought it on their honeymoon as if that were interesting unless they were using the honeymoon as cover for an international arms deal. Agatha doesn't snort aloud, though. "Wulfenbach Gallery? I've been there. They had a perfectly lovely Valpolicella."

"I hope you enjoyed it," Tweedle says with a cheerful grin, "because they won't be there in a year. Step one is buying them out."

Something is going ping in Agatha's head. She does a quizzical look. "Have you made them an offer yet?"

"Right before their big annual show?" He waves a hand as if to brush away the idiotic notion. "I'll go in once it fails. It's going to fail," he goes on, "because they don't know how to _market_. Especially not the son." 

Agatha is beginning to see why Tarvek grits his teeth when he talks about this particular cousin. But she's not here to talk about Klaus Wulfenbach's failings as a salesman, as if they didn't have enough loyal customers or interested passerby - the storefront in Fitzrovia was assuredly not just a free museum, even if Gil grumbled about the cost of keeping it open - to keep going regardless. "I've never heard of a hostile gallery takeover before," she tells him, eyes wide and guileless.

"A little more direct than the typical hostile takeover. You can't play stock option games with a private business. I just want their storeroom; I'm sure there are some gems they've been keeping in reserve. And their client list, of course." Martellus is giving her a sunny smile, like he expects her to find the whole thing charming. 

Did Tarvek know about this? He can't have. He said they weren't close. "Not just keeping for the spring show, you think?"

\--

##### Saturday, March 3rd, 20:36

It would horrify Xersephnia if it was public knowledge that she sneaks out of parties. Not even for a toke. Not even for makeout sessions; she and her girlfriend are more discreet than that. Just to get a bit of fresh air and enjoy her champagne in peace. Violetta makes sure the gravel crunches as she walks up. "Nice night, isn't it?"

"If it weren't raining." Seffie's taken the nice spot under the tree, of course. Her eyes go narrow. If she had a cigarette she'd be twirling it between her fingers. "Not enjoying the party?"

"Oh, you know how it is. Tweedle dragged Tarvek's date into the billiards room to talk her ear off, and he's gone upstairs to audit Grandma's closets."

That gets a giggle out of her, at least. Seffie has a nice laugh. "So I'm your third choice?"

"You're the most sensible person left at the party."

"Hang around for three hours and we can go clubbing," Seffie offers. "I think I owe you a drink."

"Nah. I have work in the morning," Violetta lies. But then she impulsively adds, "Thanks, though."

There's a long silence - a comfortable sort of silence, at least. Seffie isn't Violetta's favorite cousin. Tarvek managed that honour years ago, not that Violetta would give him the satisfaction of admitting it; he'd covered for her too many times when they were young and getting into mischief, and the favours he asked for were more like 'tell Father I was at the movies with you' than 'give me all your pocket-money'. But Seffie is nice to hang out with. She's friendly with absolutely everyone.

After a while Seffie says, "Did you know Julius Strinbeck lost all his etchings? Burglar. He was going _on and on_ about it last weekend."

"Really? I wasn't paying him any attention."

Seffie hides her smirk in her champagne glass. "He doesn't - " But at that moment there's a rustle in the bushes, and both their heads swing around as Agatha stomps around the corner, moving like someone who can only balance in heels because she can balance in anything. 

She pulls up short when she sees them, and her lips pull into a scowl. "Mind if I join you?"

"Not at all." Seffie smirks; it makes her glittery makeup twinkle in the distant light from the windows. "We were just discussing annoying boys. Xersephnia von Blitzengaard," she adds, and lifts her glass in a vague I'd-shake-your-hand-if-mine-were-free gesture. "I don't think we were introduced properly?"

"No, right, I'm Agatha Clay. You must be Martellus's sister? He told me a lot about you. And the Escher drawing he got you for your birthday. And all the other art deals he's in the middle of. I could barely get a word in edgewise. Sorry, I shouldn't insult your brother in front of you."

"It's fine," Seffie informs her solemnly. "I already know he's an arsehole. Champagne?"

\--

##### Saturday, March 3rd, 23:26

Tarvek's family, apparently, are lightweights. Agatha and Violetta didn't even have to sneak out together, but they did have to step over a middle-aged man who'd passed out in the coat closet. 

"Yeah, it went just about as well as you'd expect. I don't know where the fuck Tarvek ran off to." Violetta rolls her eyes at Agatha, since Agatha is there; she's holding her phone in three fingers. "I got to hear all about Martellus's new business venture, though, so it wasn't all a waste. How good are you at economics?"

From over here Agatha can't make out Zeetha's voice, just scratching. 

"It sounded like a good plan. I don't know, I'm not a business major. He was going to try to take over the Wulfenbach Gallery." The expression on Violetta's face is interesting, at least as much of it as Agatha can make out by the passing streetlights. It curls into a scowl, and then her eyebrows go up. "I knew that. Maybe that's why he picked it, he thinks they're an easy target." A long pause, and now she's half-smirking. "Sure. Catch," she says, and wings the phone at Agatha underhand.

Agatha catches it, a little awkwardly because the taxi manages to go over a bump at that exact moment. The driver doesn't say anything. Well, they're not paying him to keep up the roads. Agatha lifts the phone to her ear. "Hey."

"Hey," Zeetha says. "So it sounds like we need to not only defraud this Martellus person, we need to burn down his reputation and salt the earth afterwards."

"Pretty much." That's a more vehement defense of the Wulfenbach Gallery than Agatha would have expected, but Zeetha's taken a shine to Gil for some reason. She keeps taking him to museums. And that casual bloodymindedness is why Agatha wasn't mad that Violetta let her in on the plot; she doesn't waffle. "It shouldn't be hard, though."

"You have a plan already?"

Does she want to talk about this in a taxi? The odds are incredibly low that the drover will care, but just in case, she picks her phrasing carefully. "Gil's going to send the Castle out for an independent appraisal. He has a potential buyer who's insisting on it. If Tweedle makes a stink we can release _that_ report."

"Oooh, nice." Zeetha doesn't say anything about the nickname; she must have heard it already from Violetta. "Is anyone else going to nibble, do you think? We won't end up accidentally selling it to a museum?"

"Worst case, we buy it ourselves and try again in the autumn." Agatha bites her lip. That's always the risk. She doesn't want the exposure of playing the shill herself, they can't use Violetta or Tarvek with their cousin on the other side of the game, and Jorgi just wouldn't be convincing as a wealthy connoisseur. "I don't suppose you want to put in a bid? On behalf of the National Museum?"

"We don't have a national museum." Zeetha chuckles. "But we also don't have an extradition treaty with Britain, so if things go _really_ end up ..."

"I'll keep that in mind." Agatha lets herself snicker. She's going to visit next summer anyway. She lowers the phone to inform Violetta, "We're being promised a holiday in San Theodoros," and picks it up again. "How would we get out of the country?"

"Find a Cessna, fly to Iceland, keep going to Canada," Zeetha promptly declares. "Can be done. If you're careful about fuel."

"I didn't know you had a pilot's lis"Oh, sure. It's not as hard as it looks." She sighs. "You know Gil was asking me about lessons? I havn't been up in the air since I started university. The last plane I was on was a DC-10 into Heathrow. It's so bloody depressing. I don't suppose you have any friends who fly? And would loan me their plane?"

"Nope. Sorry." Agatha thinks for a minute. "I bet Gil would rent you one if you promised to take him sightseeing in it, though, he's got the money for it."

"Maybe I'll do that. You know. When we have a weekend free."

"Exactly."

"Speaking of which. Did you get anywhere on the fuel comparisons yet?"

"Not a thing. Too busy." Agatha squints at the streetlights flashing past. They're almost to the train station, and they got out plenty early enough, there's still going to be a train. She remembers Tarvek telling her about one party, before he quite got his business established. He'd annoyed his grandmother and fled, walked to the station only to find out he was half an hour too late for the last train, and, being too stubborn to sleep under a hedge and too temporarily impecunious to get a taxi all the way to Haggerston, had walked twenty kilometers home in his nice shoes. Then he had to work out how to get blood out of leather, because of how badly they'd pinched. He had told her this story as if it were hilarious. "Maybe we can get together next week? Tuesday after your chemistry lab?"

"Sounds good. I'll bring the crisps. The usual place?"

It's good to have friends. People you can talk to. 

\--

##### Sunday, March 4th, 02:11

The door barely creaks as it opens; Lars must be trying not to wake her up. He's thoughtful like that. Such a sweet man. Understanding. That thought isn't making Agatha feel any less guilty about this. She listens to the click of the lock, the soft shuffle as he hangs up hos coat and toes off his shoes, before she calls out, "We're in the kitchen."

"We? We have guests?" The light turns on, and Lars is standing in the doorway, blinking owlishly at them. "Oh, hi, Violetta."

Violetta does a little wave over her mug of cocoa. "Good morning."

"Only technically." He grins at them, bright and only a little lopsided. "How was the party? Were there little pickled things on sticks?"

"Lots. They're probably still going." Violetta rolls her eyes. "The ones with an alcohol tolerance, anyway. How was your night?"

Arms spread, Lars does a dramatic, swooping now. "Brilliant! Amazing! Tragedy not for six weeks at least, they're extending the run! Ooh, is that chocolate? Can I have some?" He raises the mug Violetta shoves at him like he was making a toast, and gulps at it. When he lowers it there's a moustache-smear of cocoa on his lip. "So I'll be working nights at least halfway through April. Sorry, Agatha. At least it gives you more time with your other boyfriend?"

"Assuming he's even in the country, yes." She rolls her eyes. "It's fine, I know how the job gets."

"I'm going to the matinee tomorrow," Violetta informs him with a smirk. "So give it your all for that one."

"Today's. You mean today's." Lars groans as he pulls out the last chair and plops into it. "I have to be out of bed by noon."

This is going to be tricky. Agatha tries to look at his eyes. She's not telling him now if he's drunk. But the flush in his cheeks looks more like excitement and maybe two beers with Abner after the show, which would also account for his getting in at two in the morning, and this isn't going to be any easier if she puts it off. Agatha reaches over and squeezes his hand. "I might have another little job for you," she tells him. "It has to do with the art commission."

He blinks a few times. "What kind of acting job has anything to do with an art commission?"

Violetta crosses her arms. "The role," she tells him, "is called Nervous Art Buyer. I've done it before. I can coach you."

Lars opens his mouth. Closes it again. Squints at them. Eventually, after a few too-long breaths, he says, "This is some kind of scam, isn't it."

He says it with such painful earnesty it makes Agatha wince. "Yes. A little. If you'd rather not get involved -"

"I will get involved in anything you need my help with," Lars informs her, and slaps the table for emphasis. It shivers at the blow. "Good friends help you move bodies. I just need to know if I have to hire a makeup artist to make sure I don't have a police record at the end of all this? Because I don't think I can do 'unrecognizable' on my own."

"You mean it?" She'd barely dared hope, but for a job like this - well. They needed him. And she could think of so many more jobs they could do with a grifter on the team. And that probably shouldn't be a consideration as to whether to tell her _boyfriend_ what she actually does to make rent on their flat, but Agatha can't afford to be a romantic about it.

A little of the eagerness is gone when Lars speaks again, but what he says is, "You're a good person. So anything you're involved in can't be too bad. I don't think. It's not like you're going out and shooting people, right?"

Violetta has her eyes half-shut and the resolutely blank expression of someone who is Not Getting Involved, which Agatha can't really blame her for. She looks down at her and Lars's intertwined hands instead. "Not shooting people." Not unless they shot first, and so far no one had been that stupid. "But I break into houses all the time. And replace their paintings with my copies. It's why I keep doing all the copies. That I said were commissions."

Lars's eyes narrow. He's not very intellectual, but he's certainly not stupid. "So this commission you said you were arranging for Tarvek Sturmvoraus ..."

"Is going in a show as a rediscovered Bludtharst. He does very convincing work."

"Forgeries."

"Yes."

"I guess that explains why he had _Storm on the Sea of Galilee_ hanging in his living room."

"For practice, with modern paints. But he liked how it turned out." Agatha lets go of Lars's hand. It's not fair to spring this on him at two in the morning. She's not a very nice person. "I won't say I'm not asking you to do anything illegal, but I _will_ get you convincing fake documents and it's vanishingly unlikely you'll get caught."

"Oh, I'll take the part. I meant it about moving bodies." He looks over at Violetta. "Why aren't you doing it this time? If you've done it before?"

"The mark is my cousin and he's not so much of an idiot he wouldn't recognize me," she says, and her expression softens. "We've been doing this for years. It's low risk, the money is good, and we're not exactly stealing from museums."

"We are _never in any sense_ stealing from museums," Agatha says through gritted teeth. "It is both evil and stupid. I will make a one-time exception for the Takeaway Rembrandt if we figure out a way to reunite it with Maurits Huygens."

Apparently he has heard of the Takeaway Rembrandt, because Lars's shoulders shake with a suppressed giggle, knuckles stuffed in his mouth. He takes a deep breath. "I have one condition," he says. 

"What's that?"

"Not right now, I really do have to get to bed and then I have the matinee and this is all distracting enough, but after the matinee. You two are going to sit down and tell me everything. I want to know what I've missed out on so far. Over dinner," he breezily adds. "Order in something nice."

\--


	7. Chapter 7

##### Sunday, March 4th, 9:12

"Dessert with breakfast?" 

"Sure." Zeetha beams. "Keeps your energy up." She spears the chocolate cake with her fork, with all the eager enthusiasm of a prehistoric hunter bringing down a mammoth. 

She ordered two, without asking. Gil eyes his warily; he's already eaten about as much as he normally does all day. It was a good breakfast, though, worth getting up early for. Getting up early so he could sneak out of the flat, leaving a note for his father that just said, "Meeting a friend, back later," and then spending an hour wandering around the park waiting for Zeetha to show up right on time. He doesn't know why he bothered. Gil is an adult, dammit, he's allowed to make friends, even if they're people he spent his awkward secondary school years sighing over because they were so much more awesome than he'd ever be. "Keep up my energy for what? The first hand-cranked space launch?"

"Well, if you don't want it I'll eat it. You should give it a try, though, this really is good cake." Zeetha is grinning at him over her coffee; she apparently subscribes to the black-as-night-sweet-as-sin school. She must have the metabolism of a hummingbird.

A few forkfuls later Gil's concluded that, yes, this is good enough to justify a four-course breakfast. "Prgfh," he concedes, and then reaches for his own teacup to wash his mouth out and try again. "I've had better waffles, but you're right. This is a nice place." 

"It has its advantages." Somehow the whole top layer of Zeetha's slice has vanished. "Good tomatoes. Excellent cake. Quiet enough."

"For what?"

"To have a conversation without having to strain to hear each other," Zeetha tells him serenely over her mug. 

Maybe that's why she invited him here for a breakfast date. It feels a little odd to have a conversation with Zeetha without some artifact or artwork or fascinating architectural detail in front of them to talk about, but they've been chatting merrily about the space program through fruit, eggs, grilled tomato and sausages, for all that Gil doesn't see a place for himself in the San Theodorian space program beyond 'rubber duck'. That's alright. His technical friends tell him 'rubber duck' is a perfectly important and honorable job. Zola has a whole collection. And none of that is relevant right now, because it's all a way of skating around the uncomfortable thought that Zeetha has a specific conversation in mind and he's about to lose a friend without having had the least idea, when he made whatever socially awkward blunder it was, that it would matter so much. 

He swallows. "Zeetha? Was there a - specific conversation you wanted to have?"

"Yes." She has her mug cradled in both hands; very abruptly, she sets it down. "What would you do," she asks, "if you had a secret that involved another person, and they didn't know? The secret, I mean."

Alright, maybe this is nothing to do with Gil personally. Maybe she's trying to set up a nuclear deal and her contact's been compromised. Or something. Ever since he got involved in a massive forgery scam Gil's had crime on the brain. "I guess," he eventalky says, knowing with painful certainty even as he blurts it out that its an idiotic thing to say, "it depends on how big a secret it is."

"What do you mean?"

"The bigger the secret, the harder it is to keep, right? And the worse it's going to hurt when they find out. If I just knew someone's wife thought the painting he bought was ugly, I'd keep my mouth shut. If I knew she was about to file for divorce, I'd say something."

Zeetha nods, and pokes at the air with her forkful of cake for emphasis. "What about secrets that might never come out? Say - someone sold you a painting, and tucked in the frame was a letter from her mother to her lover, saying she was so glad her husband didn't know the kid wasn't his. Would you tell her what you found?"

Why is she asking him all this? Gil has a sinking feeling that's all the worse for having no idea what she could possibly be talking about. "She might already suspect," he hedges. "And she deserves to know. Why?"

The way Zeetha is slumping over doesn't suit her at all. She's so full of energy, most of the time. "It's about my father," she tells the remaining third of the cake.

Gil takes a moment to finish his bite before he answers. "I thought you didn't have one. Well. Not one listed. You know what I mean."

"I don't on my birth certificate, but that didn't actually get filed until I was three. It was such a mess in San Theodoros back then, remember? Well - you're too young to remember." She flashes him a grin. "Birthday twin."

"Yeah." Gil doesn't believe in fate, but he can't help but feel warm and fuzzy about that particular coincidence. "But you do know who he is?"

"I do. Mom doesn't like it getting around, but she told me all about him. They blew up a lot of infrastructure together. And shot a lot of people." There's a rueful twist to her mouth as she says that, but - there was a guerilla war on, and her mother was one of the guerillas. "They even got married. That never made it to the records at all, but I have a wedding photo." She takes a deep breath and pulls something out of her hoodie pocket, holding it out to him. Gil swallows one more gulp of tea before he sets down the mug to take it.

It's a colour copy, not an original; he can make out the odd shading where the bulge of a Polaroid chemical packet must have been. Background of jungle foliage. Two people, arms over each other's shoulders and holding up the same machete in front of them with entwined fingers, both smiling. Both dressed in green t-shirts and camouflage trousers, both with hair dyed the same colour Zeetha's is now. Apart from the hair, Klaus Wulfenbach looks almost the same as he does twenty-two years later. 

All Gil can think is, _Father looks so strange with green hair._

He must have made a noise, because Zeetha pulls the photograph away again, setting it down on the table between their half-empty plates. "I'm sorry," she says. "I probably should have looked you up as soon as I was in London. Or told you as soon as we ran into each other."

"It would not," Gil manages through the tight spot in his throat, "have been very believable."

"Well, I have evidence." She taps the photo. "I knew I was looking for a Klaus Wulfenbach."

"But you havn't talked to him yet."

"Hell no. I'd probably punch him." She takes a deep breath. "Once I worked out you didn't even know you had a twin? Definitely punch him. I don't know what he was thinking."

There's something cold in the middle of Gil's chest, that keeps spreading with every breath. _Green hair_ keeps floating through his mind, as if it were at all important. "He told me not to ask about my mother. He said it was complicated and very sad."

"Nah. Simple. He left with you, he never came back again, he never called, he never wrote."

Gil remembers long days in hospital, when he was so young it's a miracle he remembers anything. He remembers his father sitting by his bedside, reading thick books with a look of fierce concentration. He doesn't remember getting the scars that are still, slowly, fading into imperceptibility, but they're there. There was at least one good reason for his father to have brought him to London. He tries to hold on to that thought.

Out loud he says, "That explains why he got so weird about it when I started following your team."

"Weird?" Zeetha shoves his plate closer. Right. Chocolate. 

"He said football wasn't worth the time. And that if I were interested in sports I should try playing one, not watching them on television. And then he walked in one day and said we were going on a trip, and it turned out to be to watch the Algarve Cup." Gil makes himself take another bite. The cake is still unfairly good. 

His sister, his previously unsuspected twin sister, has her face in her hands. "What an absolute _nua'tlhet_." That doesn't sound complimentary. Gil decides more tea can't hurt. Zeetha looks up, without actually taking her hands from her face, and looks at him between her fingers. "Was he at least a decent parent when he wasn't being weird? Please tell me I don't have anything else to hunt him down and break his bones for."

"Please don't," Gil says automatically. "He's had enough broken bones."

" _Tell me_ , Gil." 

"Nothing. He always took good care of me." Gil swallows. The cold spot in his chest is starting to turn into a tiny, warm knot of rage. "But I think I need to go ask him for an explanation."

"Do you want me to come with you?"

He could say yes, just to see the look on his father's face. Or bring her back to the flat and behave as if everything was normal, just to see if Klaus Wulfenbach would keep pretending not to know Zeetha Reina was his daughter with the evidence right in front of him, looking him in the face, asking where he kept the sugar for her tea. That would be petty and vindictive. Gil can feel the anger burning tight in his chest. He shakes his head.

His sister closes her fingers over his. "Will you tell me how it goes?"

"Of course." Gil can't really think right now, the pulsing anger is too much, but something strategic in the back of his head makes him say, "Can I take the wedding photo?"

\--

##### Sunday, March 4th, 14:23

There's something horribly wrong about having to pass the time waiting to have a dramatic showdown with your father over a family secret he's been keeping from you for twenty years. He should have been able to storm in, or stalk in and make tea with tranquil fury while his father demanded, increasingly desperate, to know what was wrong, He shouldn't have stalked in and found a note on the refrigerator, next to his own, reading _Brunch with client, back around 2_. They must have missed each other by a quarter-hour. 

It's well past two. Gil is still flipping through the pages of _Architecture of Dynastic Egypt_ without really seeing them when the door clicks open, and he hears the shuffling sounds of his father taking off his coat. "Hello?" his father calls out, and pads into the living room. 

He's smiling, like the meeting went well. It's jarring for a few seconds, before the familiar wrinkles close back over his brow, like a stormcloud eclipsing the sun. "Gilgamesh? Are you alright?"

Gil doesn't dare take a deep breath. The anger had subsided, but with his father _right here_ it's sprung back. 

"Did something happen with that friend you were meeting?"

"Oh yes." The words feel like they're springing up without Gil's conscious intent. "We had a very enlightening conversation." He would laugh at the look of consternation on Klaus's face, but he doesn't really want to know what absurd things his father might come up with, trying to explain the look on Gil's. "She told me a lot of things about her family," he goes on, "and you know, she even showed me this photograph. Of her parents at their wedding." It should be a dramatic flip, shirt pocket to coffee table, but in accordance with the way things are going for Gil today it catches on the flap and he has a few seconds of undignified struggle before he can set it down.

Klaus must be immune to irony; when his face goes white and his knees give out he manages to collapse into the armchair. He doesn't say anything.

Shallow breaths. "Why didn't you ever mention I had a twin sister?"

"You've met her?" Klaus sounds - haunted.

Well, good. Let him stew in his guilt for a while. "I met her at an auction in January. She's been here, at university, since last September. She spent two months trying to decide secondhand if she wanted anything to do with you, ever again, but apparently abandoning one of your children doesn't make a very good impression."

Klaus is flinching away for some rea - oh. Gil was shouting. 

He might as well keep it up. "I'm surprised _my mother_ never came after us. But maybe she was just too busy, cleaning up after the civil war and trying to raise a daughter alone."

"It was better for everyone." Gil's seen his father dead furious, maybe hundreds of times, but the times he's seen that anger snap into place like a mask, he can count on one hand. Could have until now. 

"How exactly was it better?"

"Zanta got to stop worrying about people thinking her foreign husband was about to turn traitor, and you got a chance at a normal, healthy life." He's almost spitting the words out. "Your sister seems to be doing just fine."

"So you do keep up with _your daughter._ "

"I followed her career, when she was on the national team. Don't change the subject, boy."

For some reason it's the addition of _boy_ that shoves Gil over the edge. Before he can quite process what he's doing, he's standing up, scooping up the unlucky _Architecture of Dynastic Egypt_ , and hurling it into the opposite wall. It hits cover-first, just as he hurled it, with a wall-shaking thump, and some inner, dispassionate part of Gil notices that even in this overwhelming heat he's reluctant to damage a book. "The _subject_ is the giant lie of omission you've been keeping up for twenty years! Maybe _my mother_ and _my sister_ didn't need you around, but maybe I'd have liked to call them once in a while! Were you just so much of a control freak you couldn't stand the idea of me having anyone to trust but you?" 

It's not even accurate. His father was downright eager for Gil to find a romantic partner. It still, apparently, hits home, and Klaus flinches before he roars back, "It was safer that way!"

" _Safer_? How exactly would my _own mother_ be a threat?"

"Some things are best left buried." There's something very old and tired in Klaus's closed-off face.

He should keep talking, and get some answers, and not leave his father alone. But the knot of white-hot fury in Gil's chest is making it hard to breathe. The whole room feels like it's closing in on him. He should say something, at least, but it's impossible to think. He needs to get out of here. He's slamming the door behind him and scrambling down the staircase before the decision to run has made its way through his conscious mind.

\--

Eventually his head clears enough to notice he's getting rained on.

Gil takes deep breaths while he assesses the situation. His chest feels tight, but it's the sting of unexpected hard exercise, not panic. He feels like he's run for miles. Which - he might well have; these are unfamiliar buildings, and the best he can do is that he's gone south. Not over the Thames. He's sure he would have noticed that. It's raining, but not hard enough to soak him through; nothing to be done about that, so Gil puts it out of his mind. There's mud on his shoes. The buildings are ordinary-looking houses. Across the street a man with a corgi on a leash is giving him a very suspicious look. Gil grins and waves at him. It must have been the wrong kind of grin; the man hurries on and vanishes around the corner.

Why is he trying to deduce where he is? He has a phone with GPS; he should check the map, then call Zeetha (his sister, his twin sister, that's still ringing in his head) and tell her it went absolutely terribly and can he come stay with her for a few days while they cool down? 

He doesn't have his phone. He left it at home on the charger. 

Gil takes a few deep breaths. Right, back to dead reckoning. A searching hand in his pocket finds four crumpled twenty-pound notes, but not his credit card or Oyster card, which are still in their pocket inside the slim blue case with his phone. Can he just take a taxi to Zeetha's place? No, because he doesn't actually know where she lives.

Back to dead reckoning. If he keeps going south he'll hit the Thames eventually. 

It occurs to Gil as he tromps disconsolately through a puddle that he barely knows anyone in London who isn't also a friend of his father. Boris and Dupree and Daiyu _work_ for his father; they're right out. Mingmei doesn't, but she'd hate to keep a secret from her sister. Her twin sister. Right. Theo would give him a place to crash, no questions asked, and comfort him with interesting mixed drinks, and Theo is in India for his cousin's wedding and he took Sleipnir with him to show off to all his relatives. Theo has his life all figured out. Gil is coming to the end of the street now, and he looks at the clouds, makes an educated guess which way is south, and turns left. 

The new street dead-ends against a park. Gil spends while staring at the pleasant strip of green space, before he picks a direction at random.

It will all look better in the morning.

It's stupid to think that when it's not even four in the afternoon. Is it? How far did he run? The new road turns; he has to take a corner. North again, or something like it. On the other hand, he's fairly sure that open space he can make out through the tangle of winter branches is the Thames.

A passing car sends a blooming spray of water into the air, and he has to leap aside to avoid it. In front of him, a girl in a polka-dot raincoat twists her polka-dot umbrella down for a shield. Gil sticks his hands back in his pockets and squishes onward.

Gil hasn't come to any more certain conclusions half an hour later when he hits the Great West Road. Trying to think about what his father might have been thinking just makes his head hurt. Gil can't even decide if he wants an apology. A better explanation? His father to meet Zeetha and get what's coming to him? 

The last time Gil can remember feeling this betrayed, this horrified, was after the mess in Paris with Tarvek. A few years' absence had taken the sting off, until actually seeing Tarvek again had only left him with a knee-jerk urge to snipe. Gil can't avoid Klaus for a few years.

Unless he got very creative. Find some of the significant-paise-businessmen who hung around Mamma's, offer to do some favour in exchange for a fake passport ... Or get a real one. He's entitled to Bourdurian citizenship through his father. It would at least be confusing if he used that to flee the country, and set up shop in Rome sketching portraits of tourists, or something. 

Of course that's not going to happen. He loves the gallery too much to just walk away. But the thought keeps him pleasantly distracted until he's a block away from Mamma's, which is also when he realises he was heading to Mamma's. 

Gkika is a friend of his father's. Probably his best friend. Being seen by her, having a drink in her bar, would let his father know Gil was still alive without Gil having to talk to him.

Gil ducks under the eaves of the tight-shut butcher's shop next door, to lurk until he decides whether this is something he wants.

\--

##### Sunday, March 4th, 16:54

"You want to go for it, then?"

"Of course." Tarvek allows himself a smirk. "The only question is, do we approach him through you and offer it stolen-to-order, or do you introduce me and I do the short-on-cash routine?"

"Mmm." Agatha taps her fingers against her pintglass. "Is there any chance Womble ever met your father? Talked to him about his collection?"

"Slim." Tarvek frowns. "I don't have records of him having bought anything from my father, and Wilhelm was meticulous about that ..."

" ... but we can't be sure he didn't look it over and decide not to buy." Agatha grimaces.

"We'll play it safe, then. Say you have a tip about a rich collector in Spain. I can insert something in the records about my grandfather having sold it away, oh, in the sixties, if you want insurance."

"Who asks for provenance on a stolen work?" The very idea is making Agatha giggle; she hides it with another gulp of beer.

Tarvek picks up his empty wineglass, purely so he can twirl it between his fingers like a Bond villain. "I don't know," he says. "There might be quite the market for forged provenances, if you spun it right. Someone just died and inconveniently forgot to leave you that Bondi you had your eye on? Will their heirs even miss it? Face it, Agatha, we could _revolutionize_ the black market for art, if we worked together."

As he'd hoped for, Agatha is collapsing into a fit of giggles. It feels good go make her smile. She raises her pint in salute. "So when will you have time?"

"Depends on how fast I can get the right panel. Probably not before May; I have some sketching I've been neglecting." 

"Fair enough." She points at him. "Now begone before you actually talk me into trying it." 

"Yes, my lady." He beams at her and shoves back his chair. "Are you busy Thursday evening?"

"Why? Another hideous family party?" Agatha raises an eyebrow. 

"Actually, I was thinking of checking out your boyfriend's performance as Miles Gloriosus. And I'll need someone to sneak me into the dressing room afterwards so I can declare my undying love." He waggles his eyebrows. "If you were telling the truth about the costuming."

Agatha snickers. "I'm not busy. Meet at your place? Five-thirty?"

"It's a deal."

Mamma's is reasonably close to the nearest Underground station, and Tarvek, alas, long since joined the humble masses for whom cab fares are a luxury. He turns up his collar against the rain, which is turning into the sort of thick, dripping kind that wants to be hail, if it were only cold enough. If he hurries he can get to the station before his coat soaks through. He very nearly misses Gil. 

But the huddled figure beneath the awning is familiar enough that he draws up short and spins on his heel, two paces on. " _Gilgamesh?_ "

Gil blinks at him a few times. "Unfortunately, yes," he says, and the words are the familiar sarcastic ones but there's something all wrong about the tone. "What are you doing here?"

"Meeting Agatha. Why are you standing out here?" 

Gil blinks a few times, as if he's trying to come up with an answer, but he fails. He half-shrugs. 

He doesn't look very wet, which means he's been standing here since before the rain got heavy, which must mean he's freezing. "Come on," Tarvek says, and grabs him by the elbow, "let's get you inside. You like Irish coffee, right?" He has no idea if that's true.

But Gil yanks his elbow away, looking genuinely panicked. "No! I can't." He blinks again. "I can't let Gkika see me."

Tarvek considers, briefly, the merits of arguing that if Gil doesn't want Gkika to see him he shouldn't stand around outside her pub. Then he decides, as usual, that cheating is more workable. "Fine. We can go somewhere completely different, how's that? But let's _go_ , I don't want to catch cold."

Gil mutters, "You're impossible." He lets himself be dragged along, though, right up until he sees they're about to duck into the train station, and then he stops dead, interrupting Tarvek in the stream of consciousness he's been keeping up for almost half a mile. "I don't have my Oyster card," he says. 

"Then how the hell did you get here? Don't tell me you left the gallery van in a carpark."

"Walked." 

Moaning in despair wouldn't help, so he doesn't do it. "Come on anyway," he hisses, "I will buy you a single ticket, how's that? Or if you insist we can go into the Costa Coffee and have this out there, but their coffee is horrible."

"It's fine," Gil says. "I have cash." He doesn't ask where they're going instead. The rain of the past few blocks has left his hair plastered to his forehead, like a wet dog, and his eyes look big and shocky in the gathering dark. Tarvek wonders why exactly he's bothering doing this. He doesn't usually pick up strays.

No, that's a lie. He knows exactly why he's doing this. Because it's Gilgamesh, who he's pined after since very shortly after he started university, and bitterly resented since he permanently left, and who his thoughts have kept running back to since they found themselves on the same side of a con. Gilgamesh will always be a special case. 

Not until they're on the train, doors closed and vanishing into the tunnel, does Tarvek venture, "You look like you had some bad news."

"I guess. Sort of. The bad part was that I didn't know about it." Gil looks around the train. It's not really crowded - it's Sunday - but they're not alone. "Can we talk about this when we get where we're going? Where are we going, anyway?"

"We are going back to my place. I have very good coffee, and whiskey." And it doesn't involve changing trains.

For some reason this strikes Gil as hilarious, and he gets through several breaths of giggling fit before he settles down, eyes fixed on his shoes. "Do you have a sofa? I don't want to go home."

Oh, he wants to find out what's behind this now. "That was the plan."

"It's not even six yet." Gil blinks. "Is it?" 

"No, but you look like you've been up too long. We'll have an early night."

\--

##### Monday, March 5th, 05:20

When Gil wakes up it takes him a while to remember where he is. The ceiling overhead is missing its familiar tacked-up star map. The curtains have been replaced by a rolled-up rollup shade. He can tell all this, despite the predawn darkness, because there's a streetlight somewhere below that's misadjusted and shining right into the room. Below?

Oh, right, Tarvek lives on the fifth floor.

Gil examines his memories of last night for embarrassing gaps, but no, he remembers all the details of how stupid he was. At least he did manage to call Zeetha. She hadn't picked up, for Tarvek's number, but he'd left a message. Then he'd done a full-on soulbaring soliloquy over coffee, and had the rare pleasure of leaving Tarvek Sturmvoraus stunned speechless. It really had been good coffee. Some more sounds very tempting. This time without the whiskey.

Tarvek is fast asleep on the sofa, still mostly dressed. He doesn't stir when Gil walks past.

In fact it's a quarter-hour later before Tarvek pads into the kitchen, apparently drawn by the smell of the coffee Gil finally coaxed out of the machine, which is one of those things with so many buttons and lights it looks like it could launch a spaceship. He's still yawning as he leans in the doorway. "You're up early."

"Yeah." Gil stares at his cup. Possibly he should have put a shirt on. "Sorry if I woke you. Couldn't sleep."

"Sleep schedules are for people with jobs," Tarvek tells him cheerfully.

Oh god, he's left his father to run himself into the ground trying to cover for all the things he - no. Boris will manage. Boris always manages and Gil refuses to feel bad about a mental health day. Or three. "Most people would say that because they stayed up until five, not got up at five."

"I do that too, when the muse demands." Tarvek pulls out the other chair and settles down across from Gil. His hair is a mess. Gil can't remember seeing him so unpolished before, even when - ever. "While you're trapped in a retail storefront, putting prices to the priceless. Tell me, do you do any work of your own these days? Or did your father keep you too busy for that?"

Gil opens his mouth. Closes it again. He doesn't want to imagine the look on his face, because it's bad enough watching Tarvek's eyes go wide at it is bad enough. "I do a webcomic," he says. "And it's _supposed_ to update Sundays."

"Ah."

"I should be - the page is even done. In my bedroom. Waiting for scanning. I should put up a notice."

"You should do no such thing. Let them stew." 

"Um."

"Everyone misses an update sometimes. Except Freefall," Tarvek informs him. "Homarus Errant missed yesterday. First time in two years. So you're in good company."

He - doesn't know. He _doesn't know_. Gil looks down and tries to think of something to say that's not any more embarrassing. "Not really," he mumbles.

"What, you don't think your excuse is as good as Holzfaller's?"

"My excuse is _exactly_ as good as Holzfaller's," Gil tells his coffee. 

"What do you - " He can hear the sudden silence as the other shoe drops. One second. Two. Three. Then Tarvek's incredulous voice. "You're Gil - Of course you are. Gil Holzfaller. I knew about the damn pet lobster, too, how could I not notice?"

Gil picks his mug up in both hands to take a gulp, and buy himself a few seconds to think of an answer. "I don't really talk about it? It's just a hobby."

"It's clever, charming, well plotted, and gorgeously drawn. You should tell everyone." Gil risks a glance at Tarvek's face, and is astonished to see the other man is blushing. "Sorry," Tarvek says. "I shouldn't go on like this. It's just - very strange, to meet someone I admire in real life. For a given sense of _meet_."

"I'm not half as good an artist as you are."

"You need to stop putting yourself down."

"Zeetha said that too."

"She's right. Listen to your sister," Tarvek declares, and points dramatically at the opposite wall.

Gil manages to look slightly indignant for three seconds before he bursts into laughter. It feels like it's bubbling up from somewhere deep inside, far beyond his conscious control, hysterical and not quite right. The vocal equivalent of uncontrollable vomiting. But it's close enough to normal laughter to be contagious, because Tarvek starts laughing too. In short order they're both clutching their sides, heads on the table, gasping as the suppressed desperation of years bursts out. 

Tarvek winds down first, in time to slap Gil on the back as his gasps turn into hiccoughs, and he gulps air trying to clean out the buzzing feeling in his head. Eventually he gets his breath back under control. It feels good to lay his head on the table. He doesn't have to worry about looking dignified. It's already a lost cause.

"Do you want breakfast?" Tarvek says. "I think you need it."

"Yeah. Probably."

Breakfast is pancakes, which Tarvek somehow puts together from three unlabelled jars and a glass bottle out of the refrigerator. It's fascinating to watch. Gil knows cooking is just simple chemistry, but he's never managed better than 'edible', and somehow recipes take three times longer than the cookbooks say they should when he tries them. It feels nostalgic for all that it's never happened before, too, watching Tarvek float around the kitchen in yesterday's clothes and uncombed hair, perfectly at home. Almost like they were friends. Gil sips more coffee in the hopes it will wash the lump from his throat.

The pancakes come with strawberries, mascarpone, and a quiet, firm interrogation. Gil answers quietly. No, he doesn't want to sneak back home and get his things while his father is out. No, he doesn't want to move out for good, he's not _that_ angry. He really does think his father thought it was for the best. Maybe a week or two, if Tarvek doesn't mind, alright then, thanks. No, he doesn't care if Agatha and Violetta know he's here, just that his father doesn't. 

He'll have to talk to Zeetha again soon. Yes, he does want to talk to - his mother. That still feels so very odd to say aloud, to even contemplate, that his mother is still alive, that he could just get on a plane and fly to San Theodoros and meet her face to face. 

Or Skype, if he wasn't picky. All he'd have to do would be ask Zeetha for her number.

Yes, he would like to borrow Tarvek's laptop later.

Yes, he'd like some more coffee.

It's still hot, and Gil takes long slow sips to avoid being burned. "Good coffee," he mumbles into his cup. He said that already, didn't he? Well, it's not like he has any dignity left to lose.

Tarvek smirks at him over the rim of his own mug, looking insufferably cattish. "You know," he says, "if you want something to keep busy on, I have an idea."

"Yes please." He doesn't have the concentration to read, for all the fascinating collection of fantasy novels in the living room, and trailing Tarvek around like a dog waiting for Zeetha to call him back would probably annoy Tarvek. What does he do all day between paintings, anyway? Is he between paintings right now?

"I have a lovely piece of wood in my studio, about a meter square, that was a tree not ten years ago. Agatha was going to do the modern fake of Castle at Heliotropolis, but would you like to give it a try? If you do the underpainting and she does the aging, it spares us a bit of time."

Does Tarvek trust him that far just on the basis of _Homarus Errant_? Or the five-year-old memory of what he did at university? Or does he just think only an utter klutz could mess up the modern fake? No, it's not important. "Of course I'll try it."

"Splendid." Tarvek's smile is so warm Gil feels like he's melting under it.

\--

##### Tuesday, March 6th, 23:03

Agatha tilts her head. "That's a lot of menace."

"Trust me." Violetta grimaces. "You met him at a party once. I've been avoiding him most of my life."

"Fine." Agatha sits back and waves a hand. "Tweedle Versus Francisco Belsen, take one."

She's seen it plenty before, she runs lines with him, but it's always fascinating to watch Lars drop into character. It's the little things that do it: a shift of the shoulders, a half-lifted eyebrow, lips twisted just slightly toward a smirk, and all of a sudden he's a completely different person. In this case, a dot-com zillionare living in LA who conveniently doesn't have any easily Googleable photographs. Violetta isn't so subtle. She wrinkles her nose into a sneer and crosses her arms to take up as much space as possible. "Hello," she sniffs.

"Oh, hello," Lars says, slightly-accented and absentminded, as if he hadn't quite noticed Tweedle was there. His eyebrows furrow. "I don't think we've been introduced?"

"Martellus von Blitzengaard."

"Francisco Belsen." A bright grin. 

"I don't think I've seen you around before."

"Oh, I'm just in town for a few weeks, you know how it is." An airy half-wave.

A little too airy, in fact, and Agatha coughs. "Tone that down."

"You sure? I stole it from your artist friend -" 

"Yes, and he acts like a flaming stereotype on purpose, and Tweedle's seen him do it. _Director._ "

"Right. Sorry." Lars blinks, and he's back in character. "You know how it is. I heard they had some simply amazing things going under the hammer. Are you just starting your collection?"

Oooh, that's good, that will get right right under his skin. Violetta bristles visibly, then forces a smile. "Actually I've been working on it for years. Old Masters mostly. And I inherited some fine pieces. Belsen, was it? First in your family?"

"Well, we can't all have rich parents." Lars tucks a curl of hair behind his ear.

They may be overdoing the hostility. That's okay, they can tone it down in rehearsals, Lars hasn't even crammed for the vocabulary yet. 

Violetta's Tweedle-smile goes sharp and unpleasant, but he wouldn't make a point of unpleasantness at an auction viewing. "See anything you fancy? There's that splendid Valpolicella. He's very popular these days. Sure to appreciate."

"Maybe, but a little dull, don't you think? I'm sure someone will snap it up at some horribly inflated price." Lars rolls his eyes. "Now these -" he waves at the framed sketches of her parents Agatha had hung on the kitchen wall - "are beautiful, and they'll go for a song."

"And another song back to the auction house later. I wouldn't buy silverpoints for investments, even if they're really by D'Omas."

"No one's arguing the attribution, I thought."

"They're not paintings. You have to ask." Violetta waves a dismissive hand. "There are plenty of fakes out there."

Lars frowns, looking slightly hangdog. "Then I'll just have to stick to paintings. Did you see the rediscovered Bludtharst?" He gives a hungry, acquisitive sigh, and Agatha clicks her tongue and mimes pressing down, _you're overdoing it_. His second sigh is much more restrained and wistful. 

Violetta bites her lip, glancing over at Agatha. "D'you think we should bring it up at all? I mean, he'll have _read_ the auction catalogue, Gil did a good job talking it up."

"He has to know he has a rival, though."

"He'll know that as soon as the bidding starts."

Lars raises a hand, back to a more usual cheer with an edge of nerves. "I'd feel better with an obvious conversational topic," he says. "It's hard enough doing improv with a partner who's actively trying to help. Doing it with someone who thinks it's all real - With my luck he'd start asking technical questions and I can't memorize _that_ much."

"Good point," Violetta says, and scowls at the table. 

Agatha finds herself drumming her fingers on her knee. "It's too bad our earbuds aren't invisible like the ones in Leverage. Then you wouldn't have to cram, I could just feed you lines."

It makes Violetta snicker, at least. Lars just sighs wistfully, and asks, "So - draw out the conversation next time?"

"Maybe. But let's keep going. Rediscovered Bludtharst." Violett puffs her chest out again. "I saw. I wonder who the anonymous seller is?"

"Oh, who cares? It's an amazing piece." Lars waves. Not very wide this time, good. "I might put in a bid myself. Some pieces just ... speak to you."

It's fascinating watching them bicker. Agatha could almost believe it's real, 'Francisco' eager but just a little superior and Violetta's Tweedle-scowl deepening. 

This is going to work. They'll get him hook, line, and sinker.

She's almost sure.

\--


	8. Chapter 8

##### Wednesday, March 7th, 19:44

The knock on the door is sudden enough it makes Gil twitch and Tarvek let out a sudden, terrified yelp. Gil grabs his wrist before he can knock over the milk bottle. "Expecting anyone?"

"No! The play's Thursday!"

The knocking starts up again in a steady rhythm. Bang-bang-bang-thump. Bang-bang-bang-thump. "Hide in the bath?" Tarvek hisses.

It's not the worst idea, but a yell comes through the door. "I know you're in there!"

Gil winces. He recognizes that voice. "I'll get it," he says, and leaps up to open the door before Dupree can get bored and start picking the lock.

He manages to get it open just in time for her next resounding knock to slam it back into his toes. Gil glares. Dupree grins. "Hey," she says, in a more normal voice. "You are one hard kid to track down, you know that?"

Asking how she found him would be pointless. Gil presses a hand to his eyes. "Come in," he says, since she's going to come in anyway. "Why are you _here?_ "

"Your dad sent me. Duh." She shoulders past him and lands on the sofa, moving with the careless grace of a panther. Wait, wasn't Tarvek standing there? Where did he vanish to? "He's all wound up about it. _Dupree, go make sure my son is still numbered among the living._ Like you couldn't look after yourself."

"And did he tell you to tell him where I am?" Gil realises he's bracing his shoulders against the door, as if he were getting ready to stop her leaving. Which is absurd. What would he do, hold her captive until he wasn't mad at his father anymore? Hanging out with con artists is doing unpleasant things to his brain.

Being a con artist is doing unpleasant things to his brain.

Dupree grins. "Nah, he's not that stupid. I think he gets that you need your space. But if you want to come home, it's fine by me, he's moping around making everybody nervous." She pauses dramatically, and her next sentence is a little more serious. "We don't know there's not a hit out on you."

He'd almost forgotten that, in the general chaos. That someone, someone called Martellus, was at least indifferent enough to his father's welfare to have someone try to run him over with a car, and it might happen again. Trying it on Gil would just be stupid, though. He's not _that_ important to the gallery. Although distracting Klaus with a sudden need to take bloody revenge would - well, it would take a twisty kind of mind. Gil takes a deep breath. "They'd have to find me first. And they don't have you."

"Flatterer." Dupree flutters her eyelashes. "What should I tell him?"

"Tell him I'm staying with a friend." It feels odd to apply the word to Tarvek, but why else would Tarvek have dragged him back here, given up his own bed and let Gil wear clothes out of his closet and entertained him with the kind of rambling conversations they used to have at university, without ever bringing up why they'd stopped?

Or been gracious enough, yesterday, to vanish from his own flat for two hours fetching groceries from the Tesco half a mile away, so Gil could talk to his mother?

Zeetha had stayed on the line for the whole conversation, which Gil was grateful for. She'd cracked jokes, made faces, and in general kept Gil from bursting into tears with sheer emotional overload. His mother - Zantabraxus Reina, Minister of the Interior for San Theodoros, hero of the Green Revolution, hopeful architect of the Bombas Spaceport, mother of the former best football player in her country, _Gil's mother_ \- had seemed calmer, but then she'd had twenty-two years to reconcile herself to the idea of having a son. Gil had three days of knowing he had a mother still living.

She'd asked about his life, what his childhood was like - odd but pleasant - and if he was enjoying his career - immensely. She'd asked, with a twinkle in her eye, if there was anyone special in Gil's life. Not in the way she meant, there wasn't, and never would be. But Zantabraxus had accepted his mumbled demurral with a nod, and promptly asked if Zeetha had anyone special she hadn't mentioned, which got such a dramatic, wounded " _Mama! Oiu'vej!_ " that Gil had actually laughed.

Dupree is laughing now, a short, sharp bark like someone feeling very smug. "I'll tell him exactly that," she says. "Maybe he'll be so surprised you have friends I can get out of his office in one piece. Hey, is that burning chocolate I smell?"

"Oh shit," Gil says, and vaults for the kitchen. They'd been making cake, before the pounding on the door began.

A few minutes later, the double boiler is sitting in the sink soaking off the burnt remnants of what had been some very nice baking chocolate, and Dupree is poking the space-age coffee machine in an attempt to make it spit out plain hot water, while Gil hunts for the tea in the mess of unlabelled steel jars Tarvek keeps out on the counter, instead of shoving everything in a cupboard to hide the shame of buying own-brand like ordinary people do. When he eventually finds the tea it is, of course, loose-leaf. Gil takes a deep breath and resumes the hunt, this time for a tea strainer. This is what he gets for being a polite guest and sticking with coffee.

But he finds one in the third drawer he tries, and in short order he and Dupree are sitting at the kitchen table, Gil staring at his mug, Dupree grinning at him. "So," she says. "How long are you going to be gone? A week? A few months? Are you going to join the French Foreign Legion?"

"You have to speak French for that."

"Gil, you went to school in Paris. Try again."

"You have to be willing to shoot people for that."

Dupree shrugs. "Okay, fair enough. But still. How long are we going to be deprived of your charming face? You know Boris is starting to get antsy too. He'd never admit it, but he likes you."

It's a fair question. Gil sighs. "Maybe a week or two. I just want to be sure I can talk to Father without screaming at him."

That's apparently answer enough; Dupree pats his hand comfortingly. "Do you want me to bring you your phone and some new clothes and stuff? That shirt's cute, but it's really not _you_ , you know."

That shirt is in a shade of pale pink less 'small girl' than 'laundry mistake', dotted with specks that prove even Tarvek can't paint without getting it everywhere, and just small enough that it fits him entirely too closely over the shoulders. Gil can't help but blush. "I noticed."

"Friend, huh? Do I get to congratulate my little late bloomer after all?" Dupree waggles her eyebrows.

He's not going to throw the tea in her face. That way lies grievous bodily harm. Nor is he going to punch her. But the swell of rage at the same damn implications, _again_ , from someone he'd thought knew better, is hard to wrestle back inside. Gil reminds himself that he'd laugh off a line like that on any ordinary day, and that he's just - not at his best, right now. Right. He does let himself growl as he answers, "You do not. Not now, not ever, do the words _not interested_ not get through your thick skull or are you expecting me to hop into bed with someone just to shut you up?"

"Whoa! Whoa there, I was just kidding around."

"Don't."

"Got it. No amoeba jokes."

"But yes, bring me my phone. And my tablet. And there's a clipboard with a piece of bristol board on the table under the window in my bedroom. Bring that too."

Dupree nods. "Later tonight okay? I'll check my shoes for GPS trackers, don't worry."

"I don't think my father is that paranoid." Gil exhales; it feels like it takes longer than it should. "Thanks, though."

"We're friends, aren't we? You can pay me back later." Her grin is very toothy, but Gil's seen her in moods like this before. She's bribeable with cake.

Not until Dupree has finished her tea and left does Gil tentatively push open the bathroom door. It looks empty, but the shower curtain is closed. Gil coughs. "She's gone," he says.

There's a rustle, and a few seconds later Tarvek shoves the curtain aside. He looks Gil up and down, like he's checking that all his limbs are still there. "Good. Are you alright?"

"Fine. She's bringing over my things later. Why did you go hide as soon as someone knocked on the door?"

"In case it was someone I didn't want to talk to," Tarvek says, with sufficient dignity that Gil decides he doesn't really want to know. "The chocolate's a loss at this point, but do you want to try creme brulee instead?"

\--

##### Sunday, March 11th, 06:04

Her brother keeps running a hand through his hair, as if it weren't messy enough already. It reminds Zeetha of her mother. Maybe it's genetic. "Sorry it's so early," he says.

"Hey, I'd be up for my run now anyway." She grins. Her place isn't much, but she's had fun putting up posters. And it's the last place anyone would look for a mysterious Bludtharst. Gil shoves his hands in his jacket pockets; his body language is still screaming _nerves_. Zeetha plants her hands on her hips. "You aren't one of those people who likes to stay up past midnight and then not get out of bed until ten, are you?"

"No, but I don't usually have anywhere to be until nine. To get the gallery open on time. Uh."

"Relax, I'd love you anyway."

"Good to know." He sighs. "I'm sorry, this is all still a little weird for me."

"It'd be weirder if it wasn't weird." Zeetha frowns, something about that sentence feels wrong, but she's not about to try to track down what. English is weird in general. "Mother says you should come home with me this summer and meet her in person."

"She - really?" His face lights up.

"Yes. Agatha's coming too, by the way, so don't worry about being the only foreigner." Agatha has reasons for wanting to meet Zantabraxus other than being friends with her daughter, but she's not going to bring Gil into those just yet. Possibly at all. "Not that you count as a foreigner, really."

"I havn't been there since I was an infant." Gil still looks cheerful about it. "The weather's going to be - an adjustment."

"Yep. I managed it the other way, though. You'll be okay."

Gil is staring very intently at the poster over her sofa, the size comparison of rockets, from the graceful little arcs of the early Russian experiments, through the surprisingly short nuclear-motor craft that took humanity to the moon, through the giant chemical bulk of the Saturn Vs that the Americans used to build their space station, before they decided space really wasn't worth the bother. "I have to ask," he says, gaze slipping over to the artist's-conception-of-a-space-elevator Agatha gave her for Christmas. "Does your mo - does our mother know about the Castle At Heliotropolis?"

Huh. Not what she would have expected him to ask. "No. And I'm not going to tell her."

"Okay." Gil takes a deep breath, like he's trying to talk himself into saying something, but after a second it all comes out in a rush. "Come on. Let's get the evidence out of here."

They don't talk much on the drive over to the gallery. It's barely light, the streets are as deserted as they ever get in London, and Gil's hands are tight on the wheel of the van. It had to be so early so there was no chance of running into his father, he'd explained. Klaus worked weekends all the time, but he didn't come in before eight. They go in through the alley; Gil gets the door while Zeetha balances the sheet-wrapped Castle at Heliotropolis on her knee. It's just big enough to be awkward, just small enough that two people couldn't carry it together.

It slides very nicely into its spot in the cool back storage room of the Wulfenbach Gallery, though, between another painting draped in its own, more formal looking, cotton cover, and one sitting exposed to the air, of a man in a plumed hat she fancies looks like he has a stress headache. Some people don't portrait well.

Gil perks up once it's there, though, and goes so far as to theatrically dust off his hands. "There," he says. "I just have to finish the bad copy, and we're all set."

"There isn't a traditional good wish for art auctions, is there? Break a leg is just theater?"

"Right."

"Good luck, then."

"Thanks." He sighs. "Sorry your long-lost twin brother turned out to be a con man."

He keeps saying things like that, and Zeetha is heartily sick of it. She punches him in the arm. "It's an adventure," she tells him, while he's still yelping and clutching his arm. "It could be worse. You could have been an accountant. But you'd better not put yourself down in front of Mom. Seriously, what did Klaus do to your head?"

His expression twists around for a second before it settles on 'indignant'. "Nothing! I'm not usually like this! You're just kind of intimidating!"

"Huh?"

"Look," Gil says. "You're the daughter of a powerful politician, who quit her _professional football career_ to study _astrophysics_. It's about as close to princess-ballerina-astronaut as an actual human being can get. I know a lot about old paintings! And then you turn out to be my long-lost twin sister! Which I thought people only had in fairytales and telenovelas! It's kind of a lot to process!"

He knows a lot about old paintings, and he knows how to make Zeetha laugh. She stuffs her knuckles in her mouth to muffle the giggles. "So you're usually completely suave, is that what you're telling me?"

"I'm fine in my element." Gil waves around the vault at the racks of paintings, the flat-storage cabinets full of drawings and etchings and prints. His element. His expression softens. "It's more than a lot of people manage."

"Right," Zeetha says, and makes a snap decision, and grins. "Why don't you tell me all about it over breakfast? I want to taste those actually-better-waffles you said you knew about."

\--

##### Sunday, March 11th, 09:42

Waiting for a phone call to pick up shouldn't be this intimidating. Gil drums his fingers on the windowsill of Tarvek's studio while the phone just keeps ringing. The window is covered, of course, so no curious passerby who happens to be thirty feet tall can tell they're making a copy of a painting that by now is known to exist and has a good likeness in an auction catalogue. And on the gallery website. Dammit, doesn't his father even have voicemail turned on?

There's a click. Alright. Finally. "Hello?" says a voice, soft and hoarse. "Gil?"

It's not his father's voice.

"Gkika?" For some reason his heart is pounding, worse than it had when he thought he was about to talk to his father. Despite the absurdity of it he has a flash of anxiety that he called the wrong number. "Why are you answering my father's phone?"

There's a quiet huff of laughter. "Becawze he iz asleep still. He's not az hyung az he uzed to be, yez? Needs de rest."

Almost ten is later than Gil can ever remember his father sleeping in, but it's not absurd. Who knows what the car hit took out of him, long-term? Klaus has always done his best not to show weakness, the peculiar pride of a man used to working with bloodyminded opportunists. Maybe he wasn't quite as recovered as he said; maybe he'd only come home instead of put up with one more day of Gkika's beef stew. Gil pinches his nose. "Can you tell him I called, then? When he wakes up?"

"Of cawze, sveethot." There's something comforting about Gkika's voice; she talks like nothing could ever go wrong. Still, there's something tapping the side of Gil's brain for attention. "Hyu vant I should tell him to call hyu?"

It's cowardly, but now that he's on the phone Gil realises he's glad his father didn't answer. He's still angrier than he knows how to explain. "No. Just tell him - tell him I'll be home for dinner Tuesday." There, a self-imposed deadline. Now for the part he's particularly glad not to be saying where his father can answer back. "And that Zeetha does want to meet him, if he's willing to explain."

For a few seconds Gkika doesn't say anything. The free-floating anxiety suggests she got disconnected and Gil will have to call her back, ignoring the soft noise of her breathing still coming down the line. Then: "Hy dunno if he will. Hyu poppa, he's more stubborn den some mountains. High explozives at a minimum to change hiz mind. But Hyu'll tell him und mebbe dis is de time he sees reason."

"We can hope." Gil lets out a long breath. "Thanks, Gkika. I don't know vat we'd do without hyu." He must be stressed out, he only mirrors accents when he's stressed.

Gkika's answering chuckle is still muted, the better not to wake Klaus. "Mebbe bash each odder's heads in. But don vorry. Hyu go relax now und Hy'll tel hyu poppa vat I tink of all this.  
"

He feels sorry for Klaus now, really. But not too sorry. "Talk to you later," he says, and manages not to do it in Gkika's accent.

"Hyu too. Bye now," and Gkika, with her usual abruptness, hangs up.

Gil leans back against the windowsill and sighs. That was a lot easier than he expected. Good luck, really, that Klaus was still asleep and Gkika picked up the phone.

Wait. His father came home two weeks ago. Why was Gkika in the room while he was asleep? She wouldn't have come over early, she keeps late hours, with the pub.

Which means she came over late and spent the night.

Which probably means Gkika and Klaus finally, _finally_ , wound up in the same bed.

Any other artists in the building would probably be amazed and alarmed by the wild whoop of joy coming out of the Sturmvoraus studio.

\--

##### Sunday, March 11th, 19:37

Violetta stabs at the air with her fork. "You say that like _family_ isn't synonymous with _backstabbing_."

"Well, you've never actually put ground glass in my soup, and I know you must have been tempted a few times. Recently."

She smirks. "Is that why we're at Le Poisson Candi? So I can't get into the kitchen?"

" _And_ it gives me an opportunity to see you wearing something other than jeans. I'm shallow like that."

There's something perverse about her cousin's brand of self-aware self-mockery, but it comes with very nice dinners, so Violetta isn't going to complain. She is going to roll her eyes, because it's her sacred duty as his cousin to keep calling him out on his bullshit.

Then she goes back to the chicken cordon bleu.

A waiter drifts by, and asks if they need anything. They don't. He drifts away again.

Tarvek is staring into his wineglass in the distracted manner of a drunk man about to tell the bartender his sob story, not that he's drunk. He's also left his dinner roll unguarded, so Violetta nabs it and tears it open.

That gets his attention, and he opens and closes his mouth like a fish twice before he utters, "That was mine."

"Past tense," Violetta tells him. "Butter rule. You could have tried talking to me, and then you'd have seen it earlier. What are you going all Byronic about this time?"

"My houseguest," he tells her, not bothering to deny it, and brushes some imaginary dirt off his lapel. "He's probably done with the painting by now. He said he was going to stay up as long as it took."

"And you feel guilty for letting him pick up your bad habits? But if he's that close it's probably not his first all-nighter, right? I mean, one week."

"I had the ground ready. And the sketch." Tarvek glances around, but the couple at the next table on her side are loudly planning a trip to California with their grandchidren, and the ones on his are staring longingly into each other's eyes in a way their spouses would probably find very upsetting. "Are you actually complaining about your girlfriend sleeping at home this week?"

"Nah. But I hope you know what you're doing, turning the job over to an amatuer."

"I hope so too." Tarvek looks down. "He's not completely new at this. You should have seen the things he did when we were at university. Practically _trompe l'oeil_. I had a nightmare once," he adds, in a strangely wistful voice, "where he died in an explosion, like Fabritus. And became an overnight sensation. I went to his funeral, which for some reason was happening three months later, and when I got home someone had burglarized our flat and taken away all his stored canvases and also, for some reason, all his shoes."

They had never lived together. Violetta decides not to point that out. "You're still head over heels for him, aren't you," she says instead, because why beat around the bush?

His blush isn't very visible by candlelight, but it's there. "That's not important."

"Uh-huh."

"What's important is the part where his dad got hit by a car and nobody got the plate."

Huh. To give herself a few seconds to think Violetta tears into Tarvek's dinner roll. It actually tastes of rosemary; this is a nice restaurant. Her cousin must be driving himself mad with worry to have brought it up the murder attempt at all. A second attempt on Gil would be bullheaded even for Tweedle, after the first didn't shut down the gallery.

"I don't think we have to worry too much," she finally says. "His dad hangs around at Mamma's, remember? And knows a lot of Syldavian businessmen?"

"So? They can't be everywhere."

"No, but I don't think they actually know about where the car came from yet. Gil got a _gallery employee_ to investigate." Violetta taps her fingers on the table, watching the ideas slot themselves together behind her eyes. "Jorgi will be back in the country tomorrow. He knows a lot of businessmen. Not just Syldavians. What if we told him everything we know, let him spread the word that Gkika would be mightily annoyed if anything happened to the Wulfenbachs, and trust in self-interest?"

"That's toothless with the first driver still - no. No, we are not having this discussion at Le Poisson Candi. Eat your chicken and we can talk about something civilized."

"Fine." Violetta picks up a shred of chicken in her fingers, just to be difficult. They should get Gil to agree to it before they tell Jorgi, anyway.

\--


	9. Chapter 9

9.

##### Thursday, March 15th, 11:55

"Camera set?"

"Camera set."

"Readying for ignition," Agatha announces, and gives the tiny switch a quarter-turn. It only takes her thirty-seven jogging steps to reach Zeetha's position, which is just few enough to make her nervous, but they calculated this. Her goggles are already pulled down, turning sweaty over her glasses. Oh, right. "Goggles?"

Zeetha pulls her own set over her eyes, although, really, they calculated this. If anything on fire gets this far, they deserve to fail the course. Zeetha gives her a cheerful thumbs-up.

Check the wires one last time. Launch button to launchpad, launch button to camera control. Agatha pulls the ignition key from her pocket and slots it into place. "Ready?"

"Ready. Flip the switch, captain."

It's a button, not a switch, as thematically appropriate and aesthetically satisfying as a giant knife switch would have been. Still. Agatha feels a swell of pride as she announces, "Five, four, three, two, one, _fire_ ," and slams down the button that sends electrical current down the wire that's clipped to the ignition point on the model rocket that is even now rising majestically into the air.

It's so nice when the math works out.

Beside her, Zeetha is whooping. "Woo- _! Take that, gravity!_ " Agatha carefully sets down the launch controller before she grabs her friend for a rib-hurting hug. Zeetha returns it one-armed, still using the other to - is she flipping two fingers to the _ground_? Well. Agatha can sympathize. They didn't even set any grass on fire.

It's hard to find the rocket in the sky again; it's turned into a tiny speck. They got it up there, and they'll know in a few seconds if it's going to come down. Commercial model rocket engines are designed to send a burst of hot gas upward, to release the recovery parachute at the appropriate moment. The imitation of the effect they cooked up in chemistry lab worked just fine, firing on the ground, but it will still be a few seconds before -

\- it pops open, and releases a parachute in familiar flag colours.

Agatha lets out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "Okay. Engine design good."

"Yeah." Zeetha has a hand raised to shield her eyes, and is trying to follow the progress of the bright speck against the glitchy grey field of clouds. "We should do this again at home. Better sky there. I think it's going to come down in the stand of oaks," and she points out the one right on top of the hill. Great, they're going to hit a megalith. Why does Britain have to have so much history all over the place?

She checks her bootlaces, but the knots are holding. Agatha rolls her shoulders as she straightens up. "C'mon. Let's see how the video turned out."

\--

Their rocket is tangled in the branches of an oak tree, three and a half meters high.

Agatha has her arms crossed and is glaring at it as if she could knock it down with the sheer force of her annoyance. "I don't suppose you brought a ten-foot pole?"

"Sorry. Fresh out." And there are no convenient fallen branches, either, but - "Can you hold my trainers? I'm going up."

"You sure?" Agatha asks, even as she takes the trainers. "I could try and knock it down with a rock."

But Zeetha is already scrambling. It's been a long time since she climbed a tree, and spending so much time in trainers and football cleats has robbed her feet of their calluses, but some things you don't forget. The oak is practically knobbed. Easy to climb.

Getting out to the branch where the rocket is stuck is a little harder. She's halfway there when she realises it's creaking alarmingly. There's another, thicker branch not half a meter away, though. Zeetha pulls herself a little more upright, bracing on the branch above, then makes the broad step. Her arrival is just hard enough to make the branch shake.

Agatha is watching, hands on hips. "I probably can't catch you if you fall, you know," she says.

"I'm three meters off the ground. I'm not going to break anything." Zeetha carefully scoots out along the branch. There it is, a little too far to just reach over and knock off, but that's okay, she just has to put one hand on this smaller branch for balance, stretch her ankle back and hook it under a bend right there, good, that's not going to break, and she can lean over with her whole torso. It's so convenient having a low center of gravity. She plucks the tangled parachute loose and lets the whole mess drop. It lands in Agatha's outstretched hands. and she immediately starts inspecting the cameras.

The fastest way down from here is going to be _down_. Zeetha grabs the branch, lets herself slide until her legs are dangling, then pushes off with her hips. She can feel her palms complain as they suddenly take all her weight on the rough bark, but she only has to dangle for a second before she drops. Last year's dead leaves go crunch.

"Shoes," Agatha says, and nudges them over with her foot.

They sit down by the megalith to watch the video on Zeetha's phone. It's impressive; you don't get a good sense of the smoke cloud, but there are only a few seconds before it's obvious just how high the rocket got, countryside laid out below like a map of itself, still receding. Zeetha sighs. "I want to go up there," she says to nobody in particular.

"Sky in general?"

"Top of a rocket. Low Earth Orbit. You know. Probably planes are the best I can do."

"Why? You'd make a good astronaut."

"One, that assumes we get the spaceport up and running while I'm still young and healthy, two, it'd look like rampant nepotism and be bad for Mother's international reputation." Zeetha thinks about it for a few seconds. "Not that anyone at home would care."

"Nepotism being a way of life there?"

"We could only clean out the old government's offices. We couldn't clean out the oil magnate's minds."

Agatha squeezes her knee. "You might as well get some use out of it, then. I mean," she adds, "I'm not exactly objective about this one, I'm going to use the hell out of my family connections if I ever do get set up to conquer Syldavia."

She'll need them. Agatha certainly has the ... business community on her side, and if the summer's negotiations go how Zeetha thinks they will, her mother will provide as much foreign influence as she can muster even if it involves pulling out the Minister for Culture's embarrassing baby wire fraud records. And it feels wrong to be talking so openly about Agatha's schemes when they aren't even really schemes yet, just an attitude of watchful waiting.

The video's still running, but they're into the part where it's a static shot of a bunch of oak leaves. Zeetha hits pause and slips her phone into her pocket. "Politics is different."

"Politics is _easier_. I can wave my dad's photo around and people will think it's an argument. Astronauts actually have to know how to fly a spaceship."

"I can learn. Once we design one." She shuffles her feet in the grass. Now she's thinking about years in the future, and simultaneously getting nostalgic. "Agatha?" she blurts out before she can talk herself out of it. "Do you remember him? Your father, I mean?"

It's an incredibly intrusive question she has no right to ask, and Agatha takes it with complete equanimity and a sympathetic smile. "I wasn't even two yet," she points out. "So, no, I don't remember anything. Kolya might, but we've never really talked about it."

"Oh."

"I remember my uncle." She shrugs. "It's probably better this way. Adam's my father for all practical purposes, it says Clay on my passport, and - you can't miss something you never knew. I can wave around pictures of my father if I want, I can talk about his legacy and know, objectively, it's worth carrying on, but none of it gets me in the heart." Agatha had her head laid back against the megalith, but now she turns to look at Zeetha. "It's not weird like it must be for you."

"Ugh, yeah, that's putting it mildly." Zeetha shakes her head. "I keep feeling like there must be something he wasn't telling Gil. _Clean break_ just - isn't enough to explain it."

From the way Agatha is grimacing, it gives her a headache to think about, too.

Tea is supposed to help with headaches, Zeetha pushes herself up against the megalith. "You know what? Rocket launches make me hungry. Let's go have a celebratory lunch."

"The only place I saw on the way in was that old pub."

"It'll do."

"So what's celebratory about a ploughman's?" Agatha smirks as she takes Zeetha's hand up.

Cake, she'd say, but they probably won't have cake. What the hell. "The single malt older than us we're going to have first."

\--

##### Friday, March 16th, 20:14

Martellus was inside talking to their grandmother, last time Tarvek thought to look, and that was why Tarvek was lurking on the terrace even though it was raining. They had one week. He felt, irrational though the thought was, as if talking to Tweedle so close to showtime risked giving something away, leaving aside that he just _didn't like_ the twit.

So, of course, he looks up from blowing on his hands to keep them warm to find Martellus there.

"Hello," says his most annoying cousin. "Deigned to show your face at a family dinner again?"

"You know me," Tarvek answered, with a sigh. "I just couldn't resist showing off my new shoes. What are you doing out here, Tweedle? It's _raining_."

"So come back inside and you'll dry off before dinner starts. Have a drink." Tweedle claps him on the shoulder, with his usual hearty disregard for personal space. "Don't you have the sense to come in out of the rain?"

"Have you _met_ Leopold's fianceé yet? And her Pomeranian?"

"Touché."

"Given you don't usually have any objection to dogs, I repeat: what are you doing out here?"

"Looking for you." Tweedle beams. "I wanted to talk business. Privately. But it will be just as quiet in the library, don't you think?"

Given his family's usual preference for social over intellectual engagement, Tarvek can't actually argue the point. And refusing on general principle would look suspicious.

Nobody's bothered to turn on the fire in the library. Tweedle starts it with a grin and a comment about how nice gas fires are, while Tarvek rolls his eyes and gulps the wine he made sure to grab on their way up. It might be helpful to play drunk. Or throw in Tweedle's face and make his escape, like a squid. He must be losing it, that's the sort of metaphor that would only make sense if he _were_ drunk. They flop into the armchairs.

If Gilgamesh were here he'd just have told Tweedle to bugger off.

"I don't know if it's made it around the gossip rounds yet," Tweedle begins, "but I'm going in to business. No good owning all this art if I'm never going to do anything with it." He's smiling, like they were friends.

Tarvek raises an eyebrow. "What, you're tired of looking at it?"

"Hah! No, I just figured it was time I did something else with my life. The dog sanctuary is worthwhile, the bronzes are fun, but we come from a long line of _merchants_. And to that end - I want to buy Uncle Wilhelm's collection from you."

Tarvek's heart starts to pound.

He should have seen this coming. His father had been selling off the art collection, piece by piece, very quietly; by the time Tarvek inherited it, there wasn't much to inherit. But there had been careful records of who bought what. Tarvek had made good use of them, picking his marks. If he was going to sell pieces his father had already sold he'd better not let the buyers compare notes. He had been so careful, so anxious that his buyers not let it get out he needed quick cash. And so, inevitably, his family still thought he had every little silverpoint.

"For starting stock? What's wrong with yours?" He keeps his voice light. Making a joke of it.

"Nothing, I just thought I could use a little more variety. And you could use the money. Make some solid investments, have a steady income - I can introduce you to a very reliable investment advisor. It'd be better for you in the long run. Come on, you can't tell me you have a sentimental attachment to the things."

Is Tweedle actually trying to be _nice_? Throwing money at his unfortunate cousin?

The idea makes Tarvek bristle, but he doesn't let it show. He doesn't need Tweedle's pity.

What he needs, right now, is a good excuse. And - there's always the truth. That's the best excuse possible. "I don't," he announces, "have a sentimental attachment. Which is why I gave most of the collection to Anevka, and I have no idea what she's done with it."

That surprises the bastard, at least. It's hilarious watching his eyebrows go up. "I see."

No, you don't, Tarvek thinks viciously, and you won't because Anevka doesn't answer your calls. Out loud he says, "I don't know if she'd be interested in selling, but she doesn't have a sentimental attachment either. So you may as well ask. Can't hurt to ask." He shrugs as if the matter is of no interest to him at all, and sips his wine.

Tweedle is looking dyspeptic. It's enough to make someone gloat. "I see."

"Really, she's probably sold the lot by now. Anevka's more into modern art." Tarvek does his best to look completely unconcerned with the matter. "An art dealership, really? I wouldn't have thought you'd be interested in retail."

"Really. I'm going to buy out the Wulfenbach Gallery, if I can convince them to sell, I'm sure there are some treasures in their backstock."

After the revelations of two weeks ago Tarvek feels less charitable toward Klaus Wulfenbach, but not so uncharitable he thinks the man deserved to get run over. Besides, in a year or so once the rumors have died down, the gallery will be his best option for getting more onto the open market. He can only sell his father's collection again for so long, and he can only insert so many pieces into the records that never existed, but through a gallery? As 'anonymous seller'? It's an invitation to print money, except that Rembrandt is so much easier to copy than money.

Those are the practical reasons. The impractical reason is, well, Gilgamesh.

"Really? Heard any good rumours?"

"The usual. Erotic drawings by D'Omas -" He waves off Tarvek's snickers, though his face is twitching with his own. "Someone's even saying they found that lost Bludtharst."

There were practical reasons he was avoiding Tweedle. But Tarvek can grift with the best of them, when he has to. It's easy when all he has to do is tell the truth. "But they did," he says, eyes wide in guileless surprise.

"What?"

"Didn't you get their spring catalogue?" He lets the implied gentle rebuke of _Or did you just not read it?_ go unspoken. "Castle at Heliotropolis, meter square, from an anonymous seller. They can't have had it too long, they didn't even have it cleaned before the catalogue photo." He knew that secondhand. He hadn't been able, quite yet, to look at what Agatha and Violetta had reduced his masterpiece to with the help of an oven, a needle to make sure the craquelure was right, and the liberal application of dirt. But it was necessary. Ravages of time.

They were doing damage now to the lovely copy Gilgamesh had made. Needle to match the craquelure - roughly, it shouldn't be exact - and inkwash to match the dirt, and the result was indistinguishable to the casual glance. But oh so very distinguishable to forensic examination.

Tweedle's eyes narrow. "And you think it's real?"

"How should I know? I only saw the catalogue." Tarvek shrugs. "But they'd have gone out of business by now if they didn't have a nose for authenticity. You know what the market's like." Alright, that's probably laying it on too thick.

"Hm."

There's one of Tweedle's bronzes in the corner of the library, on a plinth. A life-size Lhasa Apso, sitting up to regard the viewer with big, limpid eyes, begging for a treat that will never come. It's very well done technically - the beast almost looks alive - and really the only possible objection to the thing is that it's on a plinth instead of more naturalistically set on the hearth, or beside a chair to be petted. It's not strange, certainly, that their grandmother would want to honor her grandchildren by keeping their art in her house. Tarvek still feels an urge to kick it.

"You know," he says, as if he's just now thinking of it, "you probably won't have any luck with Anevka. She's not that fond of you for some reason."

Tweedle's smile is a little strained. "Some people are so irrational," he says, as if he didn't know exactly why she hated him.

"Why don't you let me talk to her first? She'll be back from LA for Leopold's wedding, I'm sure," he lies, but Leopold's wedding is in August, and if their plot goes well Tweedle will have crashed and burned by July. "I'll pitch it as an opportunity to clean up. She'll probably be glad to be rid of the old stuff."

"Thank you." It sounds completely genuine. "That's very kind of you."

"No problem. We're family, right?" Tarvek waves a hand. "Anevka has a soft spot for me. We'll work something out."

And now he's left Tweedle with the vague impression that he's living off his sister's charity. At least it's better than the truth.

\--

##### Saturday, March 17th, 00:56

Jorgi is draping his coat over the back of the barstool with exaggerated care. "Vat's so important hyu vanted to meet me at vun in de morning, anyvay? I didn't tink hyu vas dat much uv a night owl."

"Sleep schedules are for normal people." Tarvek waves a hand in dismissal. Between the wine and the distant throb of traffic he's developing a splitting headache, but he can go home after this and pass out. At least Agatha only stole three of his sleeping pills when she kidnapped him; he's close to the end of the bottle. "Sorry for making you come all this way, but I didn't want to talk about this at Gkika's."

"How come?"

"In case she had a guest over." Tarvek looks around. There's nothing unusual about the Queen's Head; it's a perfectly ordinary gastropub trying to look old, and at this hour it's populated mostly by serious drinkers. Tarvek's probably the youngest person there. Unless Maxim is younger; it's hard to tell with the purple hair. "Since apparently the elder Wulfenbach's been spending quite a lot of time there."

"Well, she vaz looking after him ven he got run over," Maxim points out. "But I tink he's all better now."

"I heard he started coming back." Tarvek coughs.

Jorgi is grinning; it's a very toothy grin. "Hy heard de same from Agatha," he tells them, and starts waving to get the bartender's attention.

Not until Jorgi has a pint and Maxim a thing involving cherries on a stick does Maxim ask, "So vy don't you vant Klaus to find out hyu vere talking to us?"

"Because I don't think he'd approve of it." Tarvek frowns at his drink. "I don't know if you know this, but Gilgamesh asked one of his gallery employees to figure out who tried to run over Klaus. And she did."

The look Maxim and Jorgi try to give each other through Tarvek's head could best be summarized as _Oh crap_.

Tarvek draws a deep breath. "It was a small-time local hoodlum, and he was acting in the employ of - someone else. I'm not going to say who because we're dealing with that ourselves. We being me, Agatha, and Violetta."

"Ve is going to have to check dat story vit Agatha," Jorgi tells him. "No offense."

"None taken." He spreads his hands. "I know I'm not in the business. Just an occasional contractor."

"But ve like hyu. So who vas de hoodlum?"

"Omar von Zinzer. Local fellow, white British, his parents just thought it was a pretty name, I guess. Drives a red Ford Fiesta and is willing to do sketchy stuff for plausibly-deniable employers. Now Dupree - the gallery employee - is willing to threaten people with knives - "

"Ho yez!" Maxim perks up. "I'z heard uv her! Dey call her Bang, right? Becawz she always makes tings explode."

Definitely a headache. Home, asprin, sleeping pills. The one major virtue of the Queen's Head was that it was three blocks from his flat. Tarvek presses a hand to his eyes. "Why am I not surprised. Anyway, I have Gil's word that he's still in one piece but very convinced not to hang out with our mastermind anymore. But. He's not the only low-rent assassin out there who might try something, and I think the mastermind is spooked but not out of the game."

Jorgi, who's pretty quick to catch on to these things, is nodding slowly. "Hyu vants we should spread the word that vould make us very, very unhappy?"

"Exactly. We can at least keep off the professionals that way."

"Amateurs iz still dangerous."

"Much as I'd like to keep Gilgamesh in a nice cosy bunker somewhere, you can't plan for everything."

Maxim raises his glass in a toast. "Ve can at least make dem think tvice, yez? Nobody vit any sense messes vit de black pelicans."

Jorgi starts to growl, while Tarvek is still blinking and trying to parse this. "Since ven iz ve called de Black Pelicans?"

"Hy keep tellink hyu ve need a name!"

"No ve don't! Ve're not a football team! Ve are _businessmen!_ "

"De Cammmora gots a name," Maxim says, and crosses his arms to glare. "Und de Traids. Und de Yakuza."

Tarvek coughs very loudly, to remind them they're in a civilian bar. How is it the black peli - Syldavian ... businessmen attract such a lot of imbeciles? It's not like they're more violent than most businessmen, so it can't be that they attract bloodyminded thugs. They have a _reputation_ for excessive violence, but that's been well enough known, for enough decades, that nobody tries to test it. Some of them are incredibly clever. Jorgi, for example, and Gkika, which was how she'd gotten out of the country in one piece despite all those Most Wanted lists; Tarvek had heard the stories. It's just that of the ordinary low-level members, they seem like a pack of golden retrievers - so full of good cheer there's not room in their head for the usual complement of thoughts.

And to this bunch of yahoos he's trusting Gilgamesh's life.

Well, to their reputation.

"Hyu vant ve should look up Omar von Zinzer? Make it retroactive?" Maxim is speaking low, and tapping his fingers on the bar.

"He's already had the fear of Dupree put into him, so I don't know if it's necessary -"

"Except dere is dis concept uv a _credible threat_ ," Jorgi interrupts. "Iz vy so many businessmen react so bad to leedle insults. Iv dey just let tings go nobody vuld tink they meant it ven dey said dey vould do someting bad to anybody dat broke deir vord."

Tarvek pinches his nose again. "If you're doing a utility calculation on it regardless, why are you asking me?"

"Maxim is asking hyu becawz he is un idiot."

"Hey!"

"But ve'll make sure he can go down to de pub aftervords und complain to all hiz buddies, dun worry. Agatha doesn't like us wipink anyvun out." Jorgi tips back his pint.

Tarvek sighs, and grabs a bar napkin and his pen. The napkins here don't have so much as a colored stripe or fancy embossing. He's paranoid to notice that. He's not paranoid to notice the bartender has vanished into the back room. Carefully, using his right hand and working in capital letters, he writes down the address Dupree had traced the guy to, and the name of the pub he frequented. Might as well be helpful. Spare them the work. Not that there were probably multiple Omar von Zinzers in London.

"Tanks." Jorgi makes it vanish.

"Thank _you_. One less thing to keep me up at night."

"Funny Agatha didn't ask uz first."

Tarvek half-shrugs and drains his wineglass. The wine they serve here is probably out of a box, it's the kind of place that caters to CAMRA, but it's wet. Right now that's enough. "She probably figured you'd do exactly what you're planning to do."

"So? She iz fine vit a little screaming."

He does not want to know how or why Jorgi knows that. "Well, ask her yourself. Since you're asking her about this anyway. I'm just trying to help out a friend."

"Ve gets it." Maxim is giving him something that could pass for a sympathetic look. "Ve is happy to look after Gkika's old friends."

\--

##### Saturday, March 17th, 14:23

It still feels very weird to knock on the door of Zeetha's flat and, five seconds later, almost be knocked over by a hug. Not that Gil's complaining. Not in the slightest.

"Happy birthday," she says into his ear.

Gil grins. He can't help it. "Happy birthday."

She plants her hands on his shoulders and leans back to give him a critical look-over. "How have you been? Still feeling okay?"

"Feeling fine. I brought cake," he says, and holds up the bakery bag. This is a last-minute celebration; he'd picked it up on the way over with no advance planning. In fact, Gil had forgotten it was his birthday until he got Zeetha's text last night. Their birthday. His brain is still catching on that idea. Give it a year.

Zeetha is apparently satisfied, at least for the moment. "Come on in, then."

It shouldn't be as surprising as it is to find Agatha inside, perched on the kitchen counter, fiddling with a bottle of champagne. Gil blinks at her a few times. She gives him a little wave. "Hi," she says. "Oooh, is that cake?"

"It is. Uh. Is there a cake knife?"

"Nope," Zeetha informs them, leaning over his shoulder to watch as he pulls the box open. "We'll just have to improvise. Is that a _clover_?"

"It was what they had!" Gil is blushing again. Bad habit. Should stop that. "Look, if you're going to get born on Saint Patrick's Day you're just going to have to put-up with shamrock-themed celebrations. At least it's green."

"Oh, alright."

"The cake is Guinness-flavored," he adds, in some desperate attempt to extricate himself from the awkwardness.

Zeetha pats his shoulder. "I'm sure it will be delicious and it was very nice of you to bring it. There's a steak knife in the drawer."

A knife is a knife; he gets the cake cut without too much trouble, and Agatha produces a bunch of forks, and then they're all leaning against bits of countertop eating cake in comfortable relative silence, punctuated by noises of appreciation. It's Agatha who breaks it. "We should probably just try baking these ourselves," she says. "Then we could experiment with the tastes."

Zeetha rolls her eyes. "You say that like it would still be cake and not fudge by the time you were through."

" _Lots more chocolate_ counts as a taste. But no, I was thinking of things that are hard to find in bakeries. I mean, the Guiness was good, but what about Scotch ale? Would salted caramel work at all or would the salt just be weird in pastry? Stuff like that. You don't cook, do you, Gil?"

"A little," he mumbles. It's just not a kind of art he's ever needed to know. Practical boil-water-add-noodles was all he had time for as a rule. "I don't know anything about baking."

"Want to learn? We could do soda bread. In keeping with the theme." Agatha grins. "Or yeast bread, if you have a few hours to hang around."

"I have lots of time. Um. My father's out for the night so technically I have until tomorrow morning, but I need to open the gallery." He should say _our father_ , shouldn't he, but Zeetha seems content to refer to him as Klaus. And still hasn't met him face to face. He gave them each other's phone numbers. That's as far as feels safe; the rest is up to them.

Zeetha puts in, "I don't have yeast, though."

The way Agatha's nose wrinkles in annoyance is adorable, not that Gil would ever tell her that. "Phooey. Soda bread it is, then."

"I don't have flour, either."

Agatha throws her hands in the air. "How do you expect me to do a baking demonstration without flour?"

"Agatha," Zeetha says, "I didn't expect you to do a baking demonstration at all. It's a party. We should be _eating_ food. Lots of it. Starting with this cake."

"Alright." Agatha lifts her fork, like the utensil equivalent of a toast. "Happy birthday to both of you. May your twenty-third year be pleasantly eventful and pecuniarily advantageous."

Well, she's certainly doing her part toward the second half of that. It occurs to Gil, quite suddenly, that he has no idea what he's going to do with the money. Insist on actually paying his half of the rent?

\--

##### Saturday, March 17th, 20:04

"And she looks the guy up and down. Very slowly. You can tell he's sweating. And she says ... Sure, as soon as you give back the tickets." Zeetha snickers.

Gil looks down at his glass. It's wavering slightly. "And she got away with it?"

"Of course she did. Nobody messes with my mother. Our mother," Zeetha corrects herself, and claps him on the shoulder. "Nobody with sense, anyway."

Beside the window, leaning on the radiator despite how hot it must be now, Agatha is snickering softly. "That only lets out ... what, half the population in any given country?"

"Maybe three-quarters. Depends on the country." Did he really just say that? Yes, he did. Gil can't remember the last time he felt this comfortable. It's good to have friends. Including friends who are siblings. Yes. Gil can't believe how lucky he is that Zeetha decided he was worth having for a brother. "I think you have a warped perspective here," he goes on, before he can quite stop himself. "You're so good at persuading people, everyone looks stupid in comparison."

"You really think so?" Agatha blinks, like the idea is entirely foreign.

"Oh, come on. You took, what - five minutes? - to convince me to join in a criminal conspiracy to sell a forged Bludtharst. Not that I'm complaining. It's a lovely conspiracy and it's a lovely Bludtharst. Exactly what he would have painted if he'd gotten around to it."

His sister reaches over to ruffle his hair. "Are you going to tell me you never fantasized about being a dashing art thief when you were a kid?"

"No." Gil sighs. "Football star, yes. Long-lost heir to the throne of Bourduria, yes. Art thief, no."

"Bourduria hasn't got a throne. Syldavia's the one that has the throne. Had the throne."

"I was very young." For once Gil doesn't bristle or blush. Nothing wrong with being young.

Agatha informs them, grinning, "All the better, really. You don't have those glamorous dreams to overcome, you know right from the start that the worst part is stumping around for a buyer and that nobody really uses fancy laser security systems you have to dance through in a bodysuit."

"Well, obviously not. It would make more sense to just add some lasers so there's only a two-inch gap nobody could get through. Like those light-curtain safety things they put on industrial machinery."

"It would make even more sense," Zeetha points out, "to invest in a good sturdy safe."

"Safes can be cracked," Agatha says, with a fond, nostalgic smile.

"Well. Obviously. But stupid laser curtain systems can be turned off at the fuse box."

Gil rolls his eyes. "Most people don't even use a good safe," he says, pitching it low because it's a silly thing to be offended by. "This one man sold us a perfectly nice Van Boucle he'd been keeping under his bed. In a box with a pile of jumpers. It smelled of cedar afterwards. I had it x-rayed just because the whole situation seemed - funny, but no, it was a real Van Boucle, it had just belonged to someone who had no idea how to treat art. Really. At least he did use moth repellent."

"I've never heard of moths eating paint," Agatha admits.

"It was on canvas."

"Did he have anything else interesting?"

That should be an ordinary piece of conversation, but there's something gleaming in the back of Agatha's eyes.

Gil opens his mouth, then shuts it again with a snap. "I am not handing over our client list to a glamorous art thief just so you can use it as a target list."

"I don't want your whole client list, they might compare notes, I just want to know if there are any other prize yahoos who'd take three weeks to notice even if I didn't replace anything. I do work on spec."

It's surreal how casually they're discussing this. The idea doesn't seem to bother Zeetha; she's downing her glass with the cheerful unconcern of someone who's getting three percent, out of Agatha's cut, and has decided any moral qualms will just have to wait. He's not sure what possessed Violetta to bring her into the conspiracy. The prospect of a friend from a country with no extradition treaty can't be that enticing; they're professionals. They're not going to get caught. But Zeetha agreed to help with the Castle without hesitation.

So did Agatha's boyfriend, the actor, and helpful as having a grifter at the auction is going to be Gil is getting nervous as how many people are involved. Six just seems like an oversized conspiracy. Maybe he's getting paranoid.

"Did you mean it?" he blurts out before he argue himself out of it. "About some people just not deserving art?"

Agatha blinks a few times. "Well, you've met them. At least that fellow with the Van Boucle kept it somewhere dry. With mothproofing."

"I think he inherited it. Didn't know what he had."

"He knew it was _expensive_ or he wouldn't have sold it to you. But he didn't know it was _beautiful_ or he would have hung it in his house, at least, to enjoy it until he had to sell." Agatha tilts her head. "Unless it wasn't beautiful, in which case I take it back."

Gil squints, trying to remember. It was - fourteen years ago, at least, when he was young enough to go everywhere with his father and be accepted without question as 'curious child'. The smell of the cedar made more of a lasting impression than the painting. "It looked delicious," he admits. Agatha chuckles.

His sister stretches, and grabs the crisp bowl on the way. "How much did you give him for it?"

"I don't remember. It was a long time ago." Gil pinches the bridge of his nose. "Is that relevant? We buy low and sell high, that's how business works. That's how _all_ business works. It's got a lot more to do with what the market can bear than whether the art's actually any good. None of which is my point. My point is - " What is his point? He's not actually sure; he lost track while he was trying to think about the delicious still life that smelled of cedar. Something about Agatha and doing things on spec. Ah, right. "My point is, it feels a lot more justifiable to take art from people who bought it for an investment."

Agatha tilts her head. "Well, sure. Sentimental value is a thing. Are you getting all utilitarian on me?"

"Nah. Just thinking." Gil is staring at his glass again. He drains it; at least that way he won't be staring. The beer prickles on the back of his throat. "I think I want to keep working with you. Assuming we don't get arrested for the Castle shell game."

He hadn't been completely sure of that until he said it. The plan had been to get involved in one scheme just for the adventure, take his thirty percent and have done. But - his father is distracted these days, Gil can slip dubious pieces through the gallery, he can give Agatha the phone numbers of buyers who don't ask too many questions. It's good to help out your friends. And your sister.

It's not like they steal from museums.

Zeetha pats him on the shoulder and shoves the crisp bowl in front of him. There are, miraculously enough, three crisps left. "Can't resist the call of adventure?"

"I wasn't asking to be brought along on heists." Gil rolls his eyes, as if the idea didn't give him a delightful adrenaline jolt, and take a crisp. "Just, think of the Wulfenbach Gallery for all your mysterious-undocumented-sketch-selling needs. And I can share my list of people looking for something specific. Is that what you offered to help out? The siren song of adventure?"

"That was a lot of it, yeah. The money didn't hurt." Zeetha half-shrugs, and plucks the second-to-last crisp from the bowl with the grin of someone who's heard the story about the two men and the biscuits and the newspaper and is wondering just how badly her brother has been infected by British politeness by mere dint of eighteen years living there. "Also, it was my best friend and her girlfriend, and there's not a lot I wouldn't do for a friend."

Gil considers a second, then takes the last crisp. It feels like it would be cowardly not to. "You deserve better than three percent for that."

"All I've done so far was help bake."

"And keep a secret. You're getting half my share." There, that's half his problem of what to do with the money solved.

His sister just sits there for a second. "I what? Are you feeling alright?"

"I owe you twenty-one years of birthday presents."

"Just take it," Agatha pipes up from the other end of the room. "It'll cover your university fees."

Zeetha rolls her eyes and sits back, crossing her arms. It's the same post Agatha's in, casual but implacable. "They do pay cabinet ministers in San Theodoros, you know. Also football players. Not exactly Manchester United rates, but I have enough savings to get through university."

"Well, keep helping us out and you can stick around for your doctorate." Agatha grins. "I admit the big money is in ransoming stuff to insurance companies, but there's still plenty in selling to connoisseurs, if you know where to look."

"Alright, fine." Zeetha leans over to wrap Gil in a one-armed hug. "As if I wasn't going to stick around anyway."

\--


	10. Chapter 10

##### Wednesday, March 21st, 16:14

It wasn't any harder to get into the auction house backroom the second time. Violetta clutches her folder to her chest and tries to look like a harried secretary anyone talking to would risk a tongue-lashing about wasting company time.

They're so newfangled and up-to-date and they keep all their filing information in a _database_ , but they also keep a terminal wide open next to Storage Room D, just in case someone needed to look something up in a hurry. All she has to do is bump the mouse. It's a maze of oddly-titled forms and she spends most of two frantic minutes hoping no one comes up and notices how unfamiliar with the system she is, but eventually she manages to do a search by seller's name, and it spits out a location. Storage Room B, file HN drawer 2. This is going to be so easy. Which is a very good thing, because the only reason for her to be doing it at all is spite.

Well. The only reason for _Violetta_ to be doing it is the extra percent off the Castle job her cousin had promised her, but the only reason for her cousin to want it done is spite. And a certain amount of turf-marking, she supposes.

Storage Room B is locked with an electronic keypad, a security feature made slightly less useful by the code written on a piece of masking tape stuck above the door handle. Modern security is a wonderful thing. Violetta would like to find the idiots who don't know how to make sure people can walk around their own damn offices and and do their job without having to remember a dozen keycodes, and kick them on general principle, even though they make her life so much easier. She slips though and twists on the light. Storage Room B is cool, large, and it has the comforting smell of an old library. There must be so much art in here, a treasury of neatly filed sketches, on paper old enough to be handmade with the fibres misaligned, slightly foxed, extremely badgered, in silverpoint or chalk or pencil or oak-gall-ink. If her cousin were here he'd want to walk though, open up each drawer, looking for the perfect set of lines that sung to him, as if ink could sing, and take it home and put it over his bed and tell people it had always been part of the collection.

Violetta doesn't know why he gets so romantic about it. She tells the version of him that seems to have taken up residence in her brain to bugger off, and stalks down the aisle, still in offended-secretary mode, to look for file HN.

It's right on top the pile, in a navy blue folder with the auction house logo on it. Not quite like the one she's carrying; this one has a protective liner, two sheets of tissue paper.

The print slips out without any trouble. The replacement, done in the middle of last night courtesy of the really nice printer in the backroom of the Wulfenbach Gallery, slips in. She makes sure the real thing is settled neatly in her folder. The young man in the velvet cap looks like he's smirking at her.

"Don't look so smug," Violetta whispers to him. "All you did was sit there."

Alright, time to get out of here before someone comes to check on the strange lady talking to the file cabinets.

There are people in the halls, of course, but they're busy with their own work and pay her no attention. Violetta passes the Wolverine-haired restorer she met last time she was here, ducking out of a closet with a jar of isopropyl alcohol. He nods, but not in any way that suggests he actually remembers her. Good. A guy in a boilersuit pushes by an antique end table on a dolly. Two young women with ponytails and matching hoodies are having a rapidfire argument over a tray of mailing envelopes.

Through the fire door, into the office space. Someone's Afro is peeking over a partition; there's the noise of rapid typing and off-key humming. A woman with long black hair is turning back into Conf Room Orange to call out, "Thanks, I'll tell him to call you!" Violetta has to dodge around her as she hurries past. From the thumping steps behind her the woman seems to be headed the same way.

So, some animal part of her brain isn't completely amazed when she feels the hand closing on her upper arm.

It would be easy to throw off; she's short enough to flip someone right over her head with no trouble. She doesn't, because it would make noise and then she'd have to answer questions or run. Violetta still might want to come back here. So she doesn't even scream as she's shoved into- a washroom, sink and toilet and ugly toad-mottled tiles, and the woman flips the deadbolt and leans against the door. "Hey," she says with a grin.

It's somehow a very pointy grin even through canine teeth not nearly as prominent as Zeetha's and the bottom drops out of Violetta's stomach even as she steps back to boot-in-the-fork range. "What do you want," she snaps.

"Well, that's what I was going to ask you!" The grin, impossibly, sharpens. "You're good, but you don't work for Patel's and you were headed for the door with something in a folder you're being awfully careful about. So I got curious."

Violetta crosses her arms. "And what are you going to do if I tell you I do work here and I'm taking a piece to a contracted restorer?"

"Not believe a word of it."

"Who are you, anyway? Security guard with delusions of grandeur?" Maybe if she gets the woman angry she'll move, and Violetta can get past her and out the door and not rip up the _Rembrandt print_ she's got in the folder. Not the biggest loss in the world, it's a print and every Tom, Dick, and Getty has a copy, but it would be a bloody shame after they went to all this trouble.

"Worse." The woman tilts her head, still looking uncomfortably sharklike. "I'm a customer. See, if I catch a thief who's trying to nick something from Patel's, they'll be all grateful and helpful and probably give us a discount for hiring their auctioneer."

Alright, maybe she'll just have to talk her way out of this. Violetta flicks a glance at the ceiling; the light fixture is off-center in that way that Agatha would notice and mutter about because it wasn't for any obvious reason. God, if Agatha were here she'd have thought of something by now. Deep breath. "And your employer will be grateful? Exactly how grateful?"

"Oooh, are you trying to bribe me?"

Violetta rolls her eyes. "Would it help?"

"Nope! I like Klaus too much."

She works for someone named Klaus. She's hiring an auctioneer. She's a nosy bastard who's good at threatening people with violence. The end of the Wulfenbach Gallery spring sale is this Friday, an auction, for which they use a professional auctioneer they hire for the night. These four facts collapse together in Violetta's mind, and leave her with a name in Gil's voice as he explains about the hit: _Dupree_.

"This is nothing to do with Wulfenbach," she says. Maybe revealing the name will catch her off guard. "And very little to do with the auction house. It's a consigned piece for their next public Old Masters night." She flips open the folder, so it's obvious. "See? Do you recognize this print? Nothing to do with you at all."

"Give me one good reason I shouldn't be a public-spirited citizen about this, then."

Luckily, Violetta has just thought of a reason that might, possibly, if Dupree hangs out with Klaus enough to know about his personal life, be good.

She narrows her eyes and tries to remember the sounds without coughing to get into character. She doesn't usually do accents. "Dis is nuttink to do vit hyu. Trust me, de guy who owned dis Rembrandt print never deserved it. Und I do not vant to make hyu an accezory by tellink hyu exactly why."  
There. She's implied she's connected to the Syldavian ... business community, which isn't completely untrue, and if she's really lucky Violetta just reminded Dupree that the guy who ran over her boss got a mysterious gift of a Rembrandt print.

She watches Dupree's eyebrows go up, then narrow into a piercing glare, and then, quite suddenly, the grin is back. Not quite so pointy this time. "Oh, is that what this is all about?"

"Like Hy said. Nuttink to do vit hyu."

Her shoulders itch. Dupree tenses, and Violetta tenses too, ready to pounce, toss aside the print and hope, and then Dupree steps to the side and gestures gracefully at the door. "Go for it, then." Somehow she's made a business card appear between her fingers; she jabs it in Violetta's approximate direction. "Look me up sometime. We should have a drink."

Violetta closes the folder. She takes the card in two fingers.

By the time she gets outside her hands are shaking, but she hasn't dropped either one.

\--

##### Friday, March 23, 10:14

It's probably a bad idea to be here, but Agatha couldn't stay away. She's not going to do anything stupid, like talk to Gil as if she knows him, or talk to Lars, or move into Tweedle's - Martellus's line of sight, she shouldn't think of him like that, Tweedle is a family nickname. But there's nothing wrong with being an Interested Member of the Public and hanging around the gallery to admire everything that's going to go under the hammer tonight, one last time. It's almost a pity about that Valpolicella landscape; it looks so happy here in the gallery. Certainly it's more publically accessible.

She looks at a carefully aligned pair of sketches, pinned under glass in neat modern metal frames. Two studies of the same woman, one from behind with an outstretched arm, nude, one seated and facing the viewer with a quiet little smile, dressed in a runched-up gown. They are, according to the little labels underneath, being sold together as Lot 8.

Lot 16 has pride of place, on the back wall with plenty of space in front of it, for people to stand and admire. It's mounted in an almost excessively simple modern frame and the net effect is of a window into some other world, somewhere that improbable castle and storm-grey sky and purple light make perfect sense - a smoky window, after all the careful damage. There's a bundle of people there right now. Agatha looks at them out of the corner of her eye, clutching her rolled-up catalogue. A tall man with an unflattering haircut, a lady in yellow who she's seen around at auctions, an older woman leaning on a walker, festooned with enamel jewelry. And beside them, mirroring but not quite part of the bundle, Lars.

Or rather, Francisco Belsen, who she's never met and doesn't recognize. Lars comes later, when they meet up at Mamma's to debrief. Agatha shoves her hands in her blazer pockets to clutch at the bottle of anti-anxiety pills. If I have them I'll end up in the washroom emptying the bottle, he'd said, and Agatha was almost sure that was a joke and he'd just wanted to keep his pockets empty for that I'm-so-rich-all-I-have-to-carry-is-a-credit-card look.

Agatha drifts a little closer, stopping on the way to drink in the oversize ink drawing on the side wall. It looks like a study for a scene out of mythology, though she can't identify the myth immediately. Two strapping young men with no clothes on face off with swords; a coterie of better-dressed friends eggs them on. One young lady has her hands pressed to her face, just one eye visible, like the fellow in the one Bosch painting being dragged away by demons. The composition isn't quite right; the left-hand swordfighter is standing like he has something wrong with his hips. They're surrounded by trees. Anonymous, Lot 40. Agatha moves on. Table of hor d'oeuvres. Because bribing people with food is traditional. She already ate.

She can see a flash of red hair, reflecting off the glass over Lot 26. Good. It wasn't easy working out when Tw - Martellus would turn up, but the effort paid off.

And the best thing she can do right now, the absolute best to make sure she doesn't mess up Lars's scene, is to slink into the hallway like she's looking for the washroom, before Martellus can see her, and listen with no chance of him noticing her and coming over to talk. There's a curtain over the door, "Washroom this Way" sign safety-pinned to it. How convenient for eavesdropping.

Agatha walks all the way down the hall, letting her heels click, before she stops, takes them off, and walks back with her shoes in one hand. She leans against the wall and closes her eyes. If anyone asks, she was getting a headache and came in here to rest her eyes before she had to go out in the sunlight again. There are a lot of conversations out there, and the one she wants hasn't so much as started yet. Someone is thinking of buying the D'Omas sketches as a wedding present for their son, you know, that girl sort of looks like Maria? Someone is just missing Italy so badly right now and they wish they could take another holiday right away and not have to wait until May. Lars is telling someone, probably the old lady, "You must have exquisite taste by now."

The old lady chuckles. "In some things. Not so much art."

"Really? That's a pity, I could have used a native guide." It's a little more naive and friendly than Agatha would have played a dot-com zillionaire, but traditionally the director is supposed to stay out of the way once the curtains open. Being nicer to some old lady than to Tweedle isn't necessarily out of character. "I don't know _what_ I'm going to bid on."

"Well, what do you like, dear?"

The small talk drones on. They're moving away; Agatha can barely make it out over all the other conversations. Next time she's going to have Lars pretend to be someone with a hearing aid, dammit, this is driving her up the wall.

What feels like an hour and what her watch tells her is four minutes, she hears another familiar voice chiming in. Martellus. "Oh, you'd be surprised at the market."

This is it. Agatha stuffs her knuckles in her mouth.

"Oh, you're an expert?" It's quite casual, something that wouldn't necessarily be an insult, in a slightly different tone of voice.

A pause. "Yes, actually. Martellus von Blitzengaard." He doesn't even bother to give his credentials. "And you are?"

"Francisco Belsen. Just browsing. There's some lovely things here. Do you know what you're bidding on yet?"

Agatha can almost hear the strained smile in Martellus's voice. "Well, I've eliminated those ridiculous D'Omas sketches. I'm not entirely convinced they're real. And honestly, they have two dozen _prints_ in the show. Padding it out? Who buys prints?"

"Depends on the print, doesn't it? They were popular enough in their day. They didn't call it the Hundred Guilder Print because Rembrandt was _giving_ them away." Agatha grins to herself at Lars's supercilious tone. It looks like the cramming paid off, if he came up with a line like that on the fly.

Martellus snaps back, "In their day, yes. Some of us now appreciate authenticity a little more."

"What do you mean?"

Good, give him an opening to blather. And Tweedle takes it. "Just that a unique piece is always more interesting. Prints went out by the hundreds. People picked up the ones their friends liked. It didn't show any more appreciation of art than buying a limited edition handbag. But paintings were done on commission. Some real person wanted this specific piece of art - or people, maybe it was a couple getting their portraits painted together, even - and paid for it, and was proud of it. It had sentimental value. And now it has history." She can just imagine his face getting a little red; this is clearly a topic Tweedle has heartfelt opinions on. "People understand that, on some level, even if they don't admit it to themselves. It's why galleries talk so much about history in their catalogues! Not just for the sake of provenance. Because it's worth something to know who owned this canvas first, what it meant to them." Pause. "Except the Wulfenbach Gallery. Did you notice they didn't tell any stories in the catalogue?"

Because there's very little point and most of them involve rich people buying the pieces for investments. Agatha would never have suspected Martellus of being so sentimental.

Lars smoothly offers, "I suppose they wanted the works to speak for themselves. I admit, a lot of them seem to have something to say." She can hear footsteps; they must be coming over to look at something on this side of the gallery. "Did you see this little duck almost leaping out of the page? It's a sketch," Lars adds, bright and cheerful. "You can appreciate its history if you like."

"I can't, though. Because they declined to mention it." Tweedle sniffs in disdain. "It's a pretty piece, to be sure, but that's all it will ever be."

"Come on. Are you seriously telling me that, oh, that new Bludtharst is less impressive because we don't know where it's been for a few hundred years?"

There's an awkward pause. Agatha bites her lips. But Martellus says, "I might make an exception for that one."

Oh, wonderful, excellent, he's _taking the bait_.

She wishes she could see Lars's face as he says, "What's so special about it?"

"Well, it's an interesting mystery, isn't it? A lot of people will be wary of the provenance," as they should be after Gil had gone all nervous and handwavy in front of the handful who'd approached him, "but it's not like any of Bludtharst's students could really imitate his style. Although there are rumours that his sister did some of what's attributed to him. I can sell mystery."

"Oh, you're in the business yourself?" Lars manages to sound both admiring and amused. "And here I thought you were just an art lover."

"Don't tell me you were thinking of taking that home for your bedroom wall."

"No! What good would it do there? Put it in the living room, where everyone can see it." It's obviously a joke. Agatha closes her eyes and breathes through her nose. "I've taken a fancy to it. Isn't it so wonderfully ... foreboding?"

"You could say that." Martellus sounds somewhere between wary and intrigued.

"Foreboding and mysterious." Pause. "And you're right, not enough people trust their noses with art. I got a perfectly lovely little Von Gorderbord portrait at auction last year. Sixteen thousand dollars, just because the auction house had stuck an Attributed To on the catalogue."

Just like Gil did with this one. Hedging their bets. Agatha wishes she could see Tweedle now, judge how close he is to taking the bait. The Von Gorderbord had gone to Anonymous Buyer, so Tweedle can't actually check the story, they'd picked it out for one of Lars's character's old buys for just that reason. In case he needed to trot out his bona fides. This is all going to work out. It's just the sort of fascinating bargain, Violetta and Tarvek had agreed, that Tweedle wouldn't be able to resist.

Tweedle's voice is flat and mild as he says, "I suppose this one will be a bargain too."

"Well, we'll see tonight, won't we?" Lars must be smirking so hard right now. "Whereas that Valpolicella is going to go for five times as much as it's worth."

Good, yes, don't drive the point home too hard. Plant the seed, let it grow.

She keeps listening as they bicker about what's going to end up overpriced and what will be underpriced, always coming right back to monetary value, because for all his fancy speech about appreciating art, Twe - Martellus. She has to remember that. Martellus is a businessman, and he's looking for an _investment_. Agatha keeps listening as their steps click away and merge into the low background murmur of the gallery. She keeps standing there until a man in a plaid suit with a pinched expression brushes past, and then Agatha decides she's listened to enough, the rest is out of range and probably not relevant, and opens the Employees Only door as if she had every right to be wandering through. The office is deserted, of course. Klaus is in his proper office, Gil is with him, Boris and Mingmei are working the floor. How did she get to know so much about the staff roster? Who is she forgetting?

Oh, right.

But the universe decides to spare her the irony for once, and she makes her way to the back door without catching a glimpse of Dupree.

\--

##### Friday, March 23rd, 13:02

"Five minutes? Really?"

"Look, just because you have just about as much grasp of technology as is required to make a Skype call doesn't mean the rest of us can't make computers sit up and beg. Tarvek. I do this sort of thing for a _living_."

"Not getting into other people's databases you don't." He leans back, draping one arm along the back of the sofa like someone trying out a pose. "Unless you've somehow turned into a one-person tiger team while I wasn't looking?"

How does he even know what a tiger team is? "Getting in was the easy part," she informs him. "Can you believe these numbskulls had the passwords taped to all the monitors inside? Well, I suppose you can, they're all art people and I suppose some clever marketer talked them into going for higher security than they actually needed, because nobody _ever_ works out that if you make it too hard for your employees to get into your own systems they're just going to make it easier for themselves. This is what happens when you let managers decide on features!" She's gotten the remote window open, and she has to think for second to remember the server name that the machines in Patel's's basement had so helpfully brought up for her while she was embarrassing herself trying to figure out which impenetrably-named form would tell her where the print was. If this takes more than five minutes it's going to be because she has to find the right form again. Shoddy information security, handmade database software complete with thumbprints. And to think these people had a website.

They probably hadn't written their own website.

"What exactly are you changing?" Tarvek asks. Because of course he can't just sit there and be decorative while she's working, he has to ask intelligent questions.

But he's probably on edge too, Violetta can't blame him. "One byte," she says. "Appraisal status to P for Pending. So on Monday morning they'll pull out the nice Rembrandt print of the man in the velvet hat to make sure they're giving it the right price, and ten seconds later they'll decide whoever took it from that nice Omar von Zinzer had accidentally come to work high."

"Ah, yes. Because the point of prints is _not_ that they were produced on a printer, however fine."

"Exactly." With, she's not too proud to admit, a bit of an unnecessary flourish, Violetta hits Enter, then Alt-F4, then lowers the lid of her laptop slowly and carefully, until it closes without so much as a click.

Tarvek smirks at her. "That was more like three minutes."

"It's not hard to beat a security system set up by morons."

"Nonetheless, excellent work." Tarvek lifts his glass. "Do you think I should frame it?"

"Huh? Frame what?"

"The Rembrandt print," Tarvek says with exaggerated enunciation. "Before I give it to Gkika."

"Hey! You don't get the print yet. You havn't paid me yet. I almost got stabbed getting that thing out of the auction house." She crosses her arms. "Pony up or shut up."

"I will pay you as soon as I get paid for the Castle. Don't you trust me?"

"You, yes. Cousin Tweedle, no. The deal could still blow up."

"Don't remind me." Tarvek down the rest of his glass. "But if the auction goes well, the worst-case scenario still involves us getting paid. Six hours, and you can walk away. The rest is a way of getting paid twice."

"Plus hideous revenge."

"Well. Yes." Tarvek's lips twist into a smirk. "I love it when a plan comes together."

\--

##### Friday, March 23rd, 18:52

"Lot Fifteen, sold for three thousand six hundred pounds." The gavel sounds louder than it should; it always does.

In the comfortable chair Gil had hauled downstairs himself to spare his father the humiliation of having to ask for it, Klaus glowers as he scribbles the price down on his notepad. Gil's never been quite sure why; Klaus can keep a running total in his head as easily as Gil can. Strictly speaking there's no reason for them to be here.

Well. Gil has to be here, for this specific auction, so he can feed bid signals to Lars. But in _general_.

Gil takes a deep breath and tries to ignore the smell of paint with overtones of perfume. He lifts his left hand to rub his temple. He's been doing that at least twice per lot, to make it look natural, instead of like the keep-bidding sign it will be. He can watch Martellus's face, and it would be stupidly suspicious if Lars kept turning around to check. It's going to be fine. Worst-case scenario, he can claim the buyer backed out and offer it to Martellus after the fact. But he doesn't really think that will happen. There's a certain amount of murmuring as Daiyu and Dupree, white-gloved, walk in with the meter-square painting and set it on the display podium. It doesn't really need both of them, wood isn't that heavy, but it gives the big works more mental weight. One of his father's little tricks. The auctioneer is scowling. Between the grey hair, the scowl, and their dark blue suits, she looks eerily like Klaus.

"Don't look so nervous," Klaus says without looking up. "You had it appraised, didn't you?"

"Yes, but it's still risky. It's only _attributed to_ Bludtharst." Because he did the attributing, despite knowing full well who'd painted it. Gil crosses his arms and focuses on the point on the opposite wall where the shadow of the tracklights changes direction across the joint of the roof. The gallery looks so different, with everything that was on display moved to the back rooms, hired chairs crowding the floor. Foreign and disturbing. Maybe for the autumn show they should just hire the hall at Patel's. There would be a little more elbow room, and they wouldn't have to worry about chairs.

The auctioneer takes a sip from her water glass and pats her bun back into place. "Lot Sixteen," she says, and straightens up, shoulders shifting back into place. Her next words are in that firm, familiar voice, meant to carry to the back of a crowded room. "Lot Sixteen, The Castle at Heliotropolis, attributed to Bludtharst. From the collection of an anonymous seller. Opening bidding at twenty thousand pounds."

About half the hands in the room go up. Of course they do, for an underestimate like that.

Twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five. At fifty the bargain hunters are dropping out. Martellus hasn't bothered to raise his hand yet. Gil looks over the crowd, trying to gauge their interest. At least two of the agents standing to the side with cell phones are talking anxiously into them. Gil lifts his left and to rub his temple. The auctioneer calls, "Sixty, anyone?"

"Eighty," Lars calls back, lifting his hand for the first time.

That surprises Martellus; his eyebrows almost vanish behind his fringe. Gil resists the urge to smirk. Or scream. "Eighty to the gentleman in blue," the auctioneer says, smooth and easy. "Ninety, anyone?" Three someones. "One hundred?" At that Martellus, scowling, raises his hand.

One hundred ten. Twenty. Martellus stubbornly keeps raising his hand. The man in the ill-fitting tweed, scowling, lets his fall. The old lady with the jewelry hesitates, then lifts her fan again at one-fifty. They're past _what a bargain_ now, and Martellus doesn't seem to have noticed. Gil lifts his left hand to scratch his chin, and Lars cooly raises his hand for one-seventy.

"Two hundred," Martellus suddenly growls.

The auctioneer nods, as if she'd expected that. "Two hundred from the gentleman in yellow. Two-ten, anyone?"

It's down to four now: Martellus, Lars, the old lady with the fan, and a thin fellow in a dark suit who already snapped up Lots Three and Nine.

Gil makes himself glance away, so it won't be suspicious how much he's staring at the audience. The brush of a hand on his almost makes him jump, but it just tightens for a moment and then lets go. His father, trying to be subtly reassuring. His father not having the least idea why he's actually nervous.

Three hundred. The old lady with the fan tucks it back into her handbag, with a regretful look. Three thirty, three sixty, and Martellus and the thin man in the dark suit, who are at opposite ends of the same row of chairs, are giving each other furtive looks. Gil hopes the thin man doesn't get it. They'd have to call off the rest of the scheme then.

Four hundred ten. Martellus raises his hand again. So does one of the people with phones. Gil doesn't let himself wince. The auctioneer grins; it's a death-rictus of an expression. "Four hundred ten from the gentleman in yellow and the telephone bidder to the left - who wants to make it twenty?" They both do. The thin man makes it thirty. Better stay in the game. Gil tucks a stray hair behind his ear with his left hand.

Lars raises his hand and says, "Four thirty from the better-dressed gentleman." 

It gets a few scattered laughs, but not from Martellus. He's making Martellus angry. Good. Martellus is so angry he snaps back, "Four hundred sixty."

"Four sixty, do I hear four seventy?" The thin man raises his hand. "Four eighty?" The thin man doesn't, but Martellus still has his up, and so does Lars, because Gil has paused with his hand still in his hair, watching intently.

He can't let this go on too long. They're already doing better than an Attributed To has any right to, and they're going to get paid twice.

"Four ninety, bit of a bidding war going on here. Five hundred? Five hundred. Five twenty-five?"

Gil lets his left hand fall, and reaches up with his right to adjust his collar.

Lars hisses a little as he crosses his arms. Martellus, hand still in the air, is looking smug.

"Five hundred twenty-five to the gentleman in yellow," the auctioneer says. "Do I hear five fifty?" One of those long, awkward pauses. "Nobody? Last call. Remote buyers, if you want to raise your bid, now's your chance. Five fifty for the possible Bludtharst." Another pause, and Gil counts five seconds with his hands shoved in his pockets, glowering at nothing in particular in hopes it looks natural. "Sold for five-hundred twenty five pounds to bidder number ..."

"Eighty-three," Martellus helpfully offers.

"Eighty three." The auctioneer gives a graceful wave, and Dupree and Daiyu pick up the painting to carry it off again. "Lot Seventeen, a beautiful portrait of an unknown subject in chalks." Boris is already coming in with it, carrying it in one hand, of course.

Gil reaches down and squeezes his father's hand, in lieu of collapsing and clinging to the nearest doorknob. "That was more than I expected," he whispers.

Klaus barely glances up. "It went well," he allows, and scribbles the six digits of the price down on his notepad.

It feels like that bid went on forever, but when Gil glances at his watch it's not even seven. They have another hour of this to get through before he can go collapse somewhere and have a drink. Maybe he should have pocketed some of Tarvek's sleeping pills while he was at - no. He shouldn't get used to thinking like a criminal, even if he just pulled off a magnificent fraud.

Which, it occurs to him, it would be incredibly hard to prosecute. "Attributed to" isn't a legal statement, even if it were there's the standard All Lots As Is understanding, and the fake is very, very convincing. It went by Dr. Rothfuss without making him nervous. No wonder than Gil didn't notice any problems when he took it from their anonymous seller, who he will have to admit if the police actually ask questions was one Violetta Mondarev, who will claim she was selling it on behalf of her cousin, who will say he inherited it from his father and only recently realized it was part of the collection. If the police ask questions. Tarvek's reputation would take a deathblow, but none of them would actually get arrested. Gil is almost sure.

For some reason none of that comfortable reasoning makes his heartbeat slow back down.

Lars just sits and watches, arms folded, through Lot Seventeen. Gil slumps against the wall and keeps rubbing his temple. It's not until the middle of Lot Eighteen that Lars twitches slightly, like someone getting a text on silent. He pulls his phone out of his pocket. He hisses. He stands up and abruptly starts shoving his way out of the row of buyers.

Lucky man, that he doesn't have to sit through thirty more lots without breaking out in a sweat.

\--

Agatha is waiting at the gate outside the Goodge Street tube station when Lars sprints up, gasping, wincing a little like his fancy shoes are hurting him, which they probably are. They're not heels, but men's dress shoes aren't made for jogging. He was moving fast enough that his suitjacket isn't more than rain-spattered, though. She stands up, holding up the shopping bag. "How was it?"

"Five twenty-five, gimme that, train to catch."

He seems astonished when she grabs him by the wrist instead, and drags him through the station arch behind her. "Huh? You don't - "

"Yes I do, come on." She manages to hook the shopping bag on her wrist long enough to pull out the pill bottle, and elbows somebody hard and steps on somebody else's foot to get past them into the lift. She lets go of Lars's hand long enough to slam the door-close button. Agatha is under no illusions as to whether it will do anything, but the violence of the gesture discourages the hapless passerby from following them onto the lift; they have a few seconds of privacy. Pity she can't stop the lift. It's long enough to spin Lars around, yank off his fancy suitjacket, and shove the windbreaker onto his arms. Agatha holds up the pill bottle while he's shrugging into it. "Preventative?"

"Please."

She presses it into his hand and decides the tie and shoes will have to wait until they're on the train, the trousers will just have to keep waiting because nice though his legs are in that lovely short centurion's outfit, sharing them with everyone on the Central Line would just be asking for trouble. They're cutting this close enough as it is; they're even taking the Northern Line down to Tottenham Court Road instead of spending ten minutes to walk.

The train is crowded; Lars hangs on to a strap with one hand and Agatha hangs on to his shoulder with one hand and uses the other to yank off the tie. It's a nice tie, except for the subtle pattern of Pacmen. The kind of thing a dot-com zillionaire would think was funny. Well, time for Francisco Belsen to vanish back into the aether, and hope nobody paid attention to the transformation. "We'll be fine," she tells him. "Eight o'clock curtain. Plenty of time."

"Hah."

They will be. The Underground is faster than a taxi, at this distance, at seven at night. Agatha ruffles his hair. "Remember to breathe."

"Right. One step at a time." Lars grins suddenly. "One, two, one, two -"

"We not only fought but we won, too," they chorus, and collapse into giggles, to the mystified glances of the late commuters and early theatergoers around them, as the train slows down to pull into the next station.

\--


	11. Chapter 11

##### Saturday, March 24th, 11:30

"Australia? Seriously, _Australia_?"

"It was a telephone bid."

"From someone in Australia."

"Yes. That is why we are sending the sketch to Australia." Gil closes his eyes in the hopes it will ease his headache. It doesn't. "You know we have a website, right? That we actually put the auction catalogue online?"

"No, I just uploaded the catalogue in my sleep. No duh we have a website. I'm just impressed. I think nobody's bought from further away than Italy before."

"First time for everything." Gil pulls away the frame - no point risking glass in the mail - and sets down the protective tissue paper layer, then the stiff paperboard. It's simple work, easy to lose himself in. "It's a good sign, I think. International reputation."

Dupree taps her fingers on her chin as she considers this. What she says, when Gil has finished taping shut the paperboard and set it safely in its long flat box, blindsides him. "Is it a good thing, though? If some random collector for Australia can find us, the Kurvi-Tasch Guards sure as hell wouldn't have any trouble."

Automatically, Gil finds himself looking around. They're in the vaul - the back storage room, they're the only ones there, and there aren't any windows some Kalashnikov-wielding assassin could suddenly jump through. "They'd have to be _looking_."

"So? It's easy now. Somebody looks up an old list of names, decides to Google them lot just on the offchance, and voila, looks like that Klaus fellow who betrayed us and joined the guerillas isn't as vanished as we all thought, want to revive the charges?"

"You're just being paranoid because somebody else had a go." The bubble wrap goes around the bundle, two layers is plenty, and the bundle goes back in the box. Dupree holds out the packing tape gun. "As far as we know it was completely unrelated. Von Blitzengaard was trying to disrupt the gallery business so he could buy us out. Just a simple ... business deal." He rolls his eyes. "Does my father know you're afraid of his old army buddies hunting him down?"

"Hah! They should be so stupid." It's not immediately obvious how the utility knife wound up in her hands. Gil could have sworn it was on the table, two meters away. "You know he'd just roll his eyes if I told him. _An intriguing hypothesis ..._ But that," she adds, casually flipping the knife, "is because Klaus thinks he's immortal. We know better. Right?"

"Unfortunately." Gil rubs his temple again. It's turning into a habit. "Look - do you have an actual reason for bringing this up, _other_ than what happened in January, or are you just getting nervous?"

It takes Dupree long enough to answer that Gil starts to feel very nervous. He closes up the box on autopilot, listening to the shnick of the packing tape gun and his own heavy breathing.

"I saw someone in Zurich," she finally says. "Who I thought was dead."

The box is closed. He can set down the tape gun. For some reason his fingers are white-knuckled on it instead. "Someone dangerous?"

"Yeah." Dupree brushes her hair back, frowning intently. It's not an expression that looks at home on her face; she's such a cheerful person, most of the time. Not nice, but cheerful. Ready to delight in other people's misery. Not for the first time Gil wonders why, exactly, his father hired her. "Not someone I'd expect would be going after your dad, necessarily, but - not someone who actually likes him, either. And who might be in contact with his old enemies. And who knows he's still alive now even if she'd never Googled it, because I wasn't exactly swearing people to secrecy." Her voice is tight. If it were anyone but Dupree, Gil wold think they were holding back tears. "And I ran off to Zurich even though it was a completely homegrown plot, and reminded everybody Klaus was still alive, and - and - "

Okay, strike the 'except Dupree'. Gil drops the tape gun and wraps his arms around her and pats her hair. Murmuring _there, there_ is probably a step too far, but he can at least take deep even breaths and hope she mirrors it.

Eventually Dupree pushes back. Her eyes are damp and red. "Tell anyone that happened and I will stab you in the liver," she announces.

Right. Uh. "Of course not. Er. Why liver?"

"Livers regenerate. I like you." She grins. It's just as disturbing as her grins always are.

Klaus Wulfenbach has enemies. He's never hidden that from Gil, despite all the things he _did_ hide. And if his old enemies have been reminded that he exists, and found out that he lives in London, there's not much they can do about it. Not just because Klaus wouldn't let them.

He sighs. "At least if somebody does try to kill my father again, I can take comfort in the thought of the hideous, bloody revenge you'll take. Which comment is not, by the way, a change of mind about Von Blitzengaard."

"Awww, you're no fun."

"Now go wash up and then come back here and help me. We have crates to build."

She tosses him a gesture that's almost a salute. "You got it, kiddo."

 

\--

##### Sunday, March 25th, 02:14

Tarvek gives up after about an hour and reaches up with his toes to drain the bathtub. He feels a little more relaxed - it's hard not to after a good soak - but not any more sleepy, and if his mind is going to keep going at full speed he might as well give it something to run itself against. He waits until the water is gone to lever himself out, wincing a little at the chill. It goes away as soon as he gets his bathrobe on, though.

In his studio, miles away, are two landscape sketches on the lovely grey endpaper Violetta found for him. They're not quite as fluid and easy as they could be, but the materials are perfect; he can find some unsuspecting dealer to take them off his hands Monday, and that will take care of April's rent even if finds out that his masterpiece went to Francisco Belsen and they'll have to run a second shell game. It's tempting, very tempting, to take the landscapes to show Gilgamesh, but the only good excuse for that would be if he were going to sell them to the Wulfenbach Gallery. Which he is not. He can't risk running anything through them for a few months, and not just in case Klaus Wulfenbach sees it. One major painting with dodgy provenance is a decade's worth of reputation.

The logical thing would be to make coffee, since sleep is a lost cause. Tarvek can't be bothered. He curls up on the sofa instead, tucking his feet in to keep them warm - he really needs new slippers - and opens the laptop, still sitting where he abandoned it Friday morning. Technically still morning. It boots up slowly, giving Tarvek plenty of time to think of ways for everything to have gone horribly wrong.

The flat feels too quiet. He can hear traffic noises far below, and somewhere on the next floor up a baby is crying. He doesn't want to turn on the television; it would be too distracting. Violetta keeps telling him to get a cat. There are several problems with that idea, starting with his inability to reliably be home every night. He'd hate to leave a cat alone so much.

It would make more sense to get another lover - poor euphemism that is for something so carnal - and start sleeping over with them, when he could arrange it. Not that that idea doesn't come with its own set of problems. God, the last time he'd slept with someone it had been that nice, if empty-headed, actual businessman who he'd sold the Jan Steen still life. It had been fun to work on; he'd anoyed Violetta by making her bring him flowers three times, so his models would always be fresh. All the sex had been in hotel rooms, though. That was one problem with married lovers. Was that really eight months ago? It feels like longer. He should sort things out with Gilgamesh. At a minimum, confirm that there's nothing to sort out.

Eventually, Tarvek gets the auction results page to load, and scrolls down to Lot 16. Sold, for five hundred twenty-five thousand pounds.

Twice what he'd hoped for, four times that he'd expected.

Tarvek sits there for a while, taking deep breaths. He doesn't know who it sold to, still. No point getting his hopes up. Things get weird at auctions. But if things had gone completely wrong, Agatha would almost certainly have called him. Either they sold some guileless mogul a very realistic Bludtharst and that's the end of the game, or he's just scored a point off Tweedle the likes of which he'll never match, and even the possibility leaves a warm glow in his chest.

With only a little hesitation, he brings up the picture. Might as well find out while he's insulated from the bad mood. It shouldn't, logically, matter. He knows what it takes to make things old; he ages his own sketches, when it's necessary. It's only paintings that are such a kick in the guts.

The kick hurts less than he expected. It's darkened, but evenly, and not so deeply you can't tell how the colours must have looked on the fresh work. There's a bit of artistic damage in the clouds. The craquelure is visible, but only just, at this resolution.

All eminently cleanable and repairable. Tweedle will get on that right away. Well. He'll try.

Tarvek realises he's smirking.

In a few hours, he thinks - around seven or eight in the morning, when Gil, early riser that he is, will be awake and having breakfast, but Klaus will still be at Mamma's, fast asleep in the upstairs flat - he'll call Gilgamesh. Confirm that everything went well. Maybe float the idea of meeting up again, spending some time together. It's good to have friends.

Tarvek spends the next few minutes going through familiar motions before he lets himself do what he shouldn't bother with, this early Sunday. He checks his email. He reads the headlines on three news sites, just in case the Eiffel Tower was abducted by aliens, or sapient whales conquered Dublin, or anything else interesting. He looks up tomorrow's - today's - weather. Rain, of course. Only then does he click the bookmark for Homarus Errant, expecting _Sunday March 18_ still to show above the nine panels of the unnamed Knight knocking on the door of the Oracle, exchanging banter with her guards.

It's updated already.

A gorgeous full-page spread, the cormorant Oracle with wings half-spread in greeting, light dripping around her sanctum, strings of pearls and seaglass hung from above. It looks like a tidepool and a temple at once, and somehow the Oracle's beaked face is serene.

Gilgamesh must be feeling just fine, if he got this all done on a Saturday night. Tarvek ignores the knot in his throat, and closes the laptop. Coffee, he needs coffee. And some nice warm socks.

\--

##### Tuesday, April 4th, 15:37

The Von Blitzengaard house is big, which Gil only knows because they deigned to allow his van through the automatic gate. You can't see it easily from the road, what with all the hedges. And the wall with spikes. It's like they're trying to hide the place. _What do you expect from old money,_ a snide voice whispers in his head, in what sounds awfully like Tarvek's voice. It's a nice enough house. Old-fashioned. It might even be genuinely old.

Dupree pulls the van up, just barely brushing past the potted columnar juniper. It shakes from the brush of the wing mirror. There's a suited man looking slightly horrified in the doorway. Dupree brakes hard, leaving Gil's fingernails embedded in the armrest and the van a few inches from a statue of a topless lady with an urn. Gil's probably imagining it that she has the same horrified expression as the man in the doorway. He takes a deep breath. He can't blame Dupree for having a little fun, not at this particular house.

She's out of the driver's seat improbably fast, and slams the door behind her. Her voice is downright chipper as she announces, "Hi! Where do you want the painting?"

The horrified man looks like he wants to tell them to go hang it in Hell, but he rallies. "Mister von Blitzengaard will be down shortly," he says, ah, okay, some kind of butler, who has butlers in the twenty-first century?, "and I'm sure he'll have more instructions for you. Ah. Would you like some tea?"

Score one for old-fashioned British politeness.

Gil makes sure to smile at the man while he's introducing himself, which is enough to startle him into volunteering that his name is Artacz. He leads them into some kind of parlour, and vanishes.

There's a sofa and a coffee table. There are Regency-style chairs, and striped wallpaper, and half a dozen paintings. That one on the far right looks like a giclee print, Gil notices with a certain amount of smug satisfaction. Another was done by someone who was clearly trying to imitate Rembrandt, but got about as close as Van Meegeren got to Vermeer. The landscape in the middle is nice, though, which is probably why it was given pride of place - that and the size; it's five feet wide. Lovely Barbizon school piece, soft and hazy like a window onto a wintery scene. "Pfft," Dupree says behind him. "He likes Impressionists?"

She's just winding him up. She knows the difference between Barbizon and Impressionist perfectly well. "How should I know?" he informs her blandly. "Everything we've sold him was Dutch Golden Age. But the Impressionists are popular for a reason."

"Yeah, 'cause people have no taste." The thump suggests she's sitting down on the sofa. Gil refuses to turn around to check whether she's put her feet up on it.

Through gritted teeth he informs her, "Just because your personal taste runs straight from Bosch to Giger doesn't mean the rest of us aren't allowed to admire a pretty naturalistic landscape now and then. Even one that actually involves sun."

"Yeah, yeah," Dupree mutters, but then she falls silent except for the drumming of her hands on the sofa arm. Gil takes a deep breath and goes back to watching the landscape. It looks like it's about to have a storm hit, that same purple, strange quality of light that Tarvek did such a nice job with for _Castle at Heliotropolis_ , although this one is greyer, not as otherworldly. There are windswept trees on each side of the scene, irregularly framing a distant hillside. No staffage, not so much as a distant figure, although there's a winding strip of browner hillside that suggests a pathway. Nobody sensible is out in that weather.

"I see you like my Rousseau," says a voice from the doorway. It's a warm, friendly voice. If it weren't coming from the man who tried to have his father killed Gil would be inclined to like its owner.

He turns, smiling. It's always better to be smiling in front of clients. "I do. Has it been in the family long?"

There are two dogs on either side of Martellus, big grey creatures that look disturbingly wolflike. He'd known Martellus kept guard dogs; he hadn't known the man let them in the house to follow him around like - well. Like friendly dogs. There's a woman standing beside him too, white-haired and leaning on a cane. It's her who answers. "Since I bought it. Martellus was only a little tiny thing then - three, I think? Just learning to string a sentence together. He'd toddle down here and stare at it for hours."

" _Grandmother_ ," Martellus hisses, with the sudden blush of a man who would really not have his guests reminded that he was once a small child. Gil chuckles politely. He'd been aware, in a distant sort of way, that this was technically Martellus's grandmother's house, that she was a collector herself. 

The old woman ignores his embarrassment, and shoves past the dogs, nudging them aside with her stick. "You must be Gilgamesh? Call me Terebithia," she says, in the cheerful tones of someone used to the entire world leaping to obey her least dictats. "I just had to see the Castle for myself. My grandson here was so besotted with it."

"Well," Martellus manages, clearly clawing the remnants of his dignity back together. "It's not every day a new Bludtharst comes on the market."

"He's been dead for three centuries, dear," Terebithia says, with a grin to let them know it's a joke. "Where is that Aratacz? Hasn't he gotten the tea ready yet? I swear, you can't get good help these days."

Gil coughs conspicuously, before this can turn into teatime. "The Castle's in the van," he says. "Shall we bring it in here for the moment?"

"Oh no, it's going upstairs," Martellus says, puffing up his chest a little. "Come on, I'll show you the lift."

He doesn't, of course, offer to help carry it. But nonetheless, a few minutes later they're in the library upstairs, listening to the crackling gas fireplace, and making admiring comments on the bronze sculpture of a dog in the corner. Well, Gil is making admiring comments, Dupree already has her screwdriver out. "Over there?," she interrupts them to ask, gesturing at the wall between the windows, where a set of hooks suggests something else used to be mounted.

It's a nice location, not close to the fireplace, except - "Will the light cause it any damage there?"

"Don't worry," Terebithia tells them, as she settles magisterially into a chair. "We keep the curtains drawn in summer."

If the Castle is still hanging there by summer they'll have misjudged him greatly. Well. If something that _looks_ like the Castle is still hanging there by summer they'll have misjudged him greatly. That's if they decided to go ahead with the switch here, but Gil is starting to think they should wait until it gets to the auction house. If Martellus is the sort of man inclined to spend long hours contemplating his possessions, he might notice the switch.

Gil frowns at the curtains for a moment as if he's judging them for himself, then nods. "Alright. About a meter and a half off the floor, then, that will keep it at eye level. Dupree, get it out of the box, I'm going to go fetch the toolbox." After all, there's only so much of a joint you can case while you have someone right there with you. He's sure he can get creatively lost on the way to the stairs.

Hanging out with criminals has done strange things to his mind.

He gets back ten minutes later with a toolbox and stepladder, having gotten lost enough to find Artacz in the kitchen in a different shirt making what was presumably his second attempt at tea and having unlocked a few windows just in case they make the switch here before anyone notices, to find the two dogs sitting outside the library looking as disconsolate and lonely as dogs can be. He tries to lean over them to knock on the closed door. They switch, very suddenly, to growling.

Right. Dogs have teeth. He hopes this is going to end up a funny story for parties and not the distinctly-unfunny story of how he got that scar on his leg.

"Good boys?" he offers, and raises his hands in an attempt to look less threatening.

The growling intensifies.

Gil backs away slowly. The dogs keep sitting there, lashing their tails in unison like a low-budget Cerberus. The one on the left looks like it's drooling. Great. At least they're not following him.

He tries to remember the layout of the library. About fifteen feet should take him to the corner without any bookshelves. Call it seven careful, slow steps back. Gil eyes the dogs, decides he has enough of a head start to throw the toolbox and stepladder at them and duck into the washroom if they actually lunge, and starts to bang on the wall.

It takes what Gil knows is thirty seconds because he's been running through bars of Staying Alive in his head in an attempt to keep calm before Martellus sticks his head out of the library door. "Oh," he says, suddenly grinning. "Are they giving you any trouble? They're just big puppies, really, they want to be where the action is."

"Well," Gil says, "having them underfoot while we try to hang a half-million-quid painting still might not be for the best. Can you make the children of the night here go make music somewhere _else_?" It's a crude and the obvious joke, and it gets the halfhearted snicker it deserves. But Martellus does come out long enough to shoo the dogs back from the door. 

Inside Dupree's already gotten the crate unbuilt, and the painting is sitting at the foot of the wall, still in its protective foam corners. "There you are," she says, scowling. "Come on, I need a jack."

By the time tea turns up Gil is in no mood to drink it. The painting is a little above eye-level, downright intimidating in the clouded light. It's level. The top and bottom are parallel; he checked them both with a spirit level. It still looks subtly wrong. There's no good reason for that. It looked just fine in the gallery.

Dupree takes out the camera and backs up just far enough to get the painting in its setting. Thankfully she doesn't say "cheese!" this time and confuse the clients. 

Terebithia, squinting at it, announces, "It's certainly a Bludtharst. Martellus, do you think he had a real castle in mind?"

"I doubt it. Those towers would fall over if they were real." Martellus shrugs; he's clutching his teacup in both hands, and it looks a little ridiculous, with his oversized hands. The towers look perfectly steady to Gil, it's just the effect of the odd perspective and the dramatic lighting that turns the whole thing precarious, but he's not here to argue with a customer. He half-shrugs. 

Dupree has her arms crossed, and is eyeballing the Castle like she's contemplating the best places to put the demolition explosives. She grins. "And crush the innocent townspeople below? I wonder if that's why he didn't put any people in it? Or is Heliotropolis just full of vampires?"

"He changed his mind," Gil says quietly. "There were figures sketched in, underneath. You can see them in the x-ray. Martellus, did you want a copy of the appraisal?" As an afterthought. Remind him of its existence, how good a bargain he's getting. Maybe he can't stab the man, but he can do his very best to fleece him.

With a shrug, Martellus says, "Probably a good idea. For the insurance." As if he weren't planning to turn around and sell the thing outright.

And wouldn't it be ironic if he weren't? If he really had fallen in love?

Well. In that case, they'll still be able to get paid twice. They'll just have to content themselves with some other hideous revenge.

\--

##### Saturday, April 8th, 18:45

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

Of course he's being all nervous about it. Add one to the list of things she'd chew Klaus out for, if she were inclined to bother. But after a few weeks of thinking it over, getting secondhand reports from her brother about his mental state, Zeetha has decided to hold off on the punching for now, however well-deserved. "I'm sure," she says. "Lead on."

Gilgamesh pinches the bridge of his nose. "Fine," he says. "If you want to leave I'll go with you, by the way."

It's adorable of him to offer, but Zeetha isn't the one who should be nervous here.

He shoves through the door, and Zeetha follows him into the quiet of the flat over Mamma's.

Klaus is sitting in the armchair, sipping what's probably tea, it always seems to be tea here. "Gkika?" he calls out without looking up. "Did you find any - " That's when he does glance over, and the question breaks off in the middle.

She can't resist giving a little wave. "Hi."

He blinks a few times. Like he can't believe his eyes. Well, she didn't give him any warning. Better not do this at our flat, Gilgamesh said, but I assume you don't want to have it out in public. Psychological tactics, Zeetha supposes, leaving Klaus a line of retreat. If he has the nerve. Right now he doesn't look like he has the nerve. He looks like he's aging in front of her eyes, face gone pale and hands trembling in midair.

Zeetha sits down on the table in front of him, and waves a hand in front of his eyes. They track it, at least. For a second she contemplates punching him anyway, but - not when he already looks like someone stabbed him.

"You." The word drops out like a reflex.

"Zeetha Reina," she says, keeping her smile firmly in place, as casual as if they were being introduced at some embassy function. "I'm a friend of your son's. Oh, and also, I'm your daughter. But you've worked that out by now."

That gets him. He pulls up, eyebrows furrowing. "I never _forgot_ that."

"Really?"

"Yes. Zeetha." The name sounds like it's being ripped out of his throat. "But I knew Zantabraxus would take good care of you." At least that comes out with something like certainty. Klaus shakes his head - shivers, arguably, the motion is so small. "What do you want from me?"

"An apology would be nice. But what I really want is an explanation." She crosses her arms.

Gil has closed the door behind him and is leaning next to it, looking like he'd rather be somewhere nice and relaxing, like the bit of the Coliflor with all the crocodiles. Zeetha can't really blame him for that. Through the floor, despite the soundproofing, float faint noises of conversation and footsteps, the sizzles and mechanical noises of a busy kitchen.

When Klaus finally speaks it's quiet and stern. "I'm sorry. It seemed like the least available evil not to contact you again. I won't ask you to forgive me."

This is giving her a headache. Zeetha finds herself tapping her fingers on her arm. "So what were the other evils? Gil told about spending all that time in hospital," she adds, just in case he's going to drop the Rotule syndrome like it was some kind of gotcha. "But from the sound of it, that was over by the time he was six."

"Mostly," Klaus allows. "By which time Zanta should have moved on."

Right. Of course he was convinced of that. "She was a little busy."

"She didn't need me around causing her trouble."

From beside the door Gil sighs. "That's the same thing you told me and I still don't believe it," he says.

Their father takes a deep breath. Another. His face looks carved from stone, like an old pyramid statue. He sets his hands on his knees, with slow, careful movements that leave Zeetha suddenly reminded that he's past sixty, as if the white hair weren't enough reminder. "I have a lot of enemies," he says. "And your mother has a lot of enemies. There was no reason to expose both of you to twice the risk."

With clenched fists, Gil hisses, "Some ab - " He breaks off, mid-word, and his expression just - slams open, simmering anger to sudden revelation with only a half-second's raised eyebrows to anticipate the change. "Father. Was January the _third_ time?"

Third? Okay, there's obviously context she's missing. But from the taut fury on Klaus's face, he knows exactly what's going on. "Yes," he hisses. "They were waiting in the flat. You won't remember. You were too young to remember."

"Who were they?"

Klaus spreads his hands. "They weren't stupid enough to be carrying their passports."

"Wait, wait," Zeetha interrupts. "Are you telling me you didn't want to get in touch with Mother again because you were afraid someone would try to kill _us_ because we were near you?"

His voice is horribly flat and cold. "Or Gilgamesh, for your mother's sake. It was too much to hope that our separate enemies would compare notes and notice the last set of men who tried getting revenge on one of us _never came back_."

Okay. Zeetha isn't sure what she expected, something idiotic or maybe, if she was really lucky, an admission he'd done it for selfish reasons. Plausible reasons weren't part of the plan. Their father should have told Gil the truth, but Zeetha can't actually blame him for panicking at the very thought. She sighs, and buries her face in her hands. From the hitching of his breath Gil is having a little trouble processing this too.

Gilgamesh grew up in an art gallery. Stories about his father courting his mother by bringing her someone's head on a stick weren't really part of the equation.

If her mother were here - Zeetha knows what she'd say. "You should at least have called anyway. Maybe there was a risk, but it was our risk to take."

Maybe. No one sensible would have gone after Zantabraxus Reina.

For a second nothing happens, and then Klaus pushes up out of his chair, face suddenly contorted with fury. "The stakes were too high! I was _not_ about to gamble with the life of _my son_!" He's yelling by the end of it, so righteously furious it's a wonder the walls aren't shaking.

Without thinking it through - without thinking about it at all - Zeetha's grabbed him by the elbows, holding him back. Not until he finishes does she notice the touch. Her father notices at the same moment, and breathes in hard in sudden shock. It is, it occurs to Zeetha in an abstracted sort of way, the first time they've touched since she was a baby. Gil has taken two steps forward, hands outstretched, ready to shove them apart.

They stare at each other, in shock or despair, it's hard to tell.

Klaus breaks their locked gaze first, looking down, still breaking hard. "The stakes were too high," he repeats.

To hell with it. Zeetha lets go and yanks him into a hug.

She can feel him go stiff in her arms, and then relax, just a little, deciding she's not a threat. She squeezes and lets go. No point pushing too hard. She doesn't know the man. But her brother loves him, so she'll hold off on the punching and screaming. "Okay," she says. "That's a good start on the explanation."

Klaus settles back into the armchair with the air of a man who's watching a hungry lion try to purr. "So glad you -"

 _BANG_.

It wasn't a gunshot. It was too low, too protracted for that. That thought makes it ways across Zeetha's conscious mind, but it doesn't matter, because she's already halfway to the door that Gil is flinging open, and Klaus's feet thud on the floor as all three of them leap for the stairs.

\--

##### Saturday, April 8th, 18:46

The annoying thing about watching Maxim playing darts is that he's such a showman about it. He takes careful aim, squinting, leaning back like posture plays any significant role, insisting everyone be quiet so he can do this right, winding up, and sending the dart sailing gracefully to land right in the middle of the toucan-with-a-pint-glass sign posted next to the dartboard.

"Tell me again how hyu iz so gud at darts," Dimo says.

She's staying well out of this one. Agatha takes a gulp of beer and eyes the three of them. Maxim, as always, is in trousers that look painted on and the faint smirk of someone fully aware of this, Dimo has the expression of a man who doesn't want to have to _prove_ he could beat them all up one-handed, and Oggie is grinning the grin of a man who knows exactly how cute he looks with his shirt unbuttoned. Their darts games usually end in a fistfight. She should probably not have shown up at all tonight; she has electromagnetics homework. Sometimes Agatha wonders if she would have done better to forget the annoying 'degree' part and just shut herself in a library for a few years, learning the fast way. Except then she wouldn't have met Zeetha. The pub is loud and warm and smells faintly of beer; two waitresses are making their way around the tables, and a bearded man in an anorak has just walked in, shaking the rain off his coat. Beside Agatha, Gkika leans over and mutters, sotto voce, "Dun vorry, sveeethot, Hy got a first-aid kit dat can do puncture vounds." Her hair is hot pink today and her  
fingernails match; she taps them on her glass. 

"Good to know. How often do you have to restock it?"

The bearded man in the anorak is making a beeline for them. Huh.

"Hoh, iz not so bad. Sum veeks dey play card games." Gkika looks up at the bearded man, who's stopped beside them, glowering. "Hyu looking for somevun?"

"Yes," he says, and points at the darts team, who are having a spirited argument over whether darts has mulligans. "Them."

Gkika glances at Agatha. Agatha shrugs and spreads her hands. Gkika sighs and cups her hands around her mouth, megaphone-style. "Boyz! Somevun to see hyu!"

Oggie drops the dart he was trying to stick through Maxim's ear and essays a friendly wave. Dimo just glowers back, looking as bad as the bearded man. Maxim grins. He has very shiny teeth. "Hey dere! Hy'z never seen hyu before in my life," he volunteers. "How sure are hyu dat hyu got de right people?"

"Purple hair, half shirtless, scruffy guy with a funny nose, all hang out at Mamma's? You're either the right people, or you can help me look for your evil doppelgangers." Bearded Man is growling the line. He didn't mention _one arm_ for Dimo, but that's not immediately obvious, with the prosthetic covered by a glove. Hm.

Dimo saunters over, casually managing to put himself between the bearded man and Gkika and Agatha's table. "Und vy do hyu tink dese doppelgangers is evil?"

"Well, you broke my brother's arm and set his car on fire," the bearded man snaps. "For no good reason. Stay back, ma'am," he adds, probably because Agatha has risen out of her chair. "This is nothing to do with you and I don't want a nice young lady getting hurt."

Oh, this is so her business now. "I don't want my friends getting hurt either."

"They're _going to,_ " he hisses.

Oggie's wandered over too, and he's cracking his knuckles. "Hy dunno," he announces. "Dere's only vun of hyu."

Agatha risks a glance at Gkika, who's spun around to watch but is still taking delicate sips of her thing-with-fruit-onna-stick, looking perfectly calm. There are about a dozen other customers she recognizes - André is by the front door, Rerich is by the kitchen - and a dozen she doesn't, passing trade, but the youngest is a girl of ten or so and none of them have wheelchairs or canes; if she screams loud enough they could get out in a hurry. Nobody seems to have noticed the confrontation except for one waitress, who's set her drinks tray down and has one hand on a chair like she's tensing to grab it and throw.

The bearded man bursts out, "Are you even going to try to explain yourselves?"

"Mebbe," Dimo offers. "Are hyu going to tell uz who your brudder iz?"

"What? Omar von Zinzer! Do you destroy so many Ford Fiestas just for fun you don't _remember_?"

"Ho! Dat guy! Eazy-peazy," Oggie puts in. "It vas bevause -"

He doesn't get the rest of the sentence out; Dimo takes over. "Becawz he vas doing bad tings vit de car," he hisses, "so ve took it away. Und if he didn't tell hyu dat maybe none of dis iz your business?"

"He's my _brother_. That makes it my business. And what do you mean bad things? The worst thing he's done with that car was run it into a bollard! I had to put on a new bumper for him! Not exactly serious!" The bearded man has grabbed an empty pintglass off the nearest table and is holding it so tight, Agatha wonders if he knows how nasty a fistful of broken glass can actually be. "Give me one good reason not to take the price of a new car out of your hide."

Agatha steps forward too, hands spread to emphasize her temporary harmlessness. "Because I don't want _you_ getting hurt either. Just walk away. It will be easier in the long run."

"Sorry," Bearded Man says. "I'm staying right here."

Oggie looks ostentatiously around them. "Iz hyu really so stupid hyu can't count? Iz not a fair fight!"

"Then _you can take turns!_ " It's an absurd thing to be a dramatic warcry, but the intruder gives it enough energy to come close to actual menace. Poor guy. He's not in bad shape as far as Agatha can tell under the anorak, and he's angry enough to mean the yelling. He just so obviously has no idea who he's dealing with.

Maxim's been quiet for a while, staying still next to the dartboard while the argument started attracting glances. All of Gkika's regulars and half the passing trade are watching, after that yelling. Watching the bearded man, to be precise. So Agatha is the only one watching Maxim as he leans back, takes careful aim, and lets the dart fly. It goes _ping_ as it rattles into the pintglass Bearded Man is clutching.

"Whoops," Maxim announces, grinning.

In a smooth motion Bearded Man drops the glass, grabs a chair, and swings it right at Dimo. Dimo swings up his arm to block it, and there's a painful _BANG_ like the noise of, well, a lightweight aluminum prosthetic arm crumpling under the onslaught of a solid oak chair. Bearded Man must be stronger than he looks.

The next few seconds are confusing.

By the end of them, Bearded Man is lying on the floor with Oggie pinning him down by the neck, Gkika's glass has joined the shards all over the floor, the regulars are halfway across the floor, and one of the non-regulars is screaming. Not the ten-year-old, who's watching in rapt amazement, but a middle-aged man with a moustache and an expression of faint horror.

"Okay," the waitress announces brightly, "why don't you all follow me - " - there's a slamming door noise, and a clatter on the stairs - "outside?" she smoothly corrects, "Remember your coats, come on, everyone."

From the kitchen Gil and Zeetha burst out. Zeetha's grabbed a footlong carving knife on the way, and from her expression, she just needs an excuse. Gil is empty-handed.

Wonderful. Agatha clears her throat. "Everything's fine," she says, loudly, over the clatter of the departing diners.

Oggie looks up. "Well, Hy dunno if - "

"Shut up," Agatha snaps. He shuts up.

Her own glass is long gone, but Gkika reaches over and snags the remnants of Agatha's pint. She takes a drink. A very long drink. So long that it gives the rest of the customers time to snake out the door, and only then does she slam the glass back on the table. It gets everyone's attention, including the man on the floor. "Hy vould very much like to know," she says into the quiet, "vat everyone waz thinking here."

The babble of voices lasts five seconds, until she repeats the slam. They go quiet. "Guests first," she says graciously. "Oggie, let de man up."

The bearded man scrambles to his feet as soon as Oggie backs away, brushing off the knees of his jeans. "Exactly what I said," he protests. "This pack of - these three beat up my brother and set fire to his car. I wanted to know why. And maybe make them pay him back. That's all." He looks a little terrified. Well, Agatha can't blame him.

Gkika nods regally. "Maxim? Is this true?"

"He said it, Hy can't read minds -"

" _Did you hurt his brudder._ "

"Ve vas careful! Ve made sure he vasn't left handed!"

"Hy'll take dat as a yez. Dimo? _Vy_ did hyu hurt de fellow?"

Dimo is pulling his jacket off, with considerable care, to examine the crumbled bend in his arm. It doesn't actually look broken; Agatha makes a mental note to make sure she leaves with the arm, so she and Adam can do some bodywork tomorrow. Dimo doesn't look at Gkika as he says, "He ran someboddy over vit his car und ve didn't vant him to do it again. Und ve vanted him to tell all his friends not to do it eider."

"Und whoze bright idea vas dis?"

"Jorgi's."

"It vasn't all hiz idea," Oggie protests. "He only told us to becaz dat painter Agata likes vanted him to."

That pai - are they talking about Tarvek? What has he been up to behind her back and why does he think he can give orders to her Black Peli - her friends in the business? Damn, now Maxim has her doing it. She'd assumed it was Gil who'd asked; he was the one with a personal interest. Huh.

"Und hyu did not tell me about dis _VHY_?" Gkika's last word is almost a roar.

None of the three of them manage to come up with an answer. Oggie looks at his feet and Maxim looks at the dartboard and Dimo looks at the celing in a give-me-strength kind of way. After a few seconds, Rerich coughs, and all the assorted other regulars look at him. "Hy tink," Rerich says, "dey assumed de painter vas working for hyu, since dis was about hyur boyfriend."

For some reason Gil is turning red. But he chokes out, "He told you about that?"

"Vell, sure." Dimo shrugs. "Ve told de Von Zinzer bloke hyu vas off-limits too, if hyu were vorrying."

"Good hydea," Gkika drawls, "but mebbe next time ve can ektually coordinate."

There's a chorus of _yes Gkika_ and _sorry Gkika_ s even from most of the regulars who had nothing to do with it, who are huddled around in a random assortment of locations that would still be very hard to get past if Bearded Man decided to make a break for it.

But Bearded Man doesn't seem inclined to run. In fact, he looks like he's about to collapse. Falco helpfully shoves a chair at him, and he lands heavily on it, looking green. "Did he really run somebody over?"

"Yes." The voice is a new one, coming from the kitchen door. "Fortunately, it didn't work."

To be precise, Klaus Wulfenbach is leaning in the door, clutching at the doorframe like someone who wishes they'd brought their cane with them. It can't be anyone else; the resemblance to Gil is striking, although Gil doesn't have so impressive a nose. They even have the same flyaway haircut. And Klaus, apparently, has the instincts of a grifter. Gil had said he was completely recovered, that you couldn't even tell he'd been hurt.

 

Bearded Man looks down. "Sorry, sir," he mumbles. 

"What's your name?" Klaus starts to limp across the floor toward them, pausing to rest against each chair he passes. 

"Moloch von Zinzer."

Agatha can't help but burst out, "Moloch? Seriously?"

"My mother wasn't much of a reader." Bearded Man - Moloch - slumps in his chair, sullenly crossing his arms. 

Klaus has gotten most of the way across the floor by now, somehow, despite the obvious limp. "And now that you know why these men attacked your brother, are you still interested in revenge?"

"No sir." Moloch is looking queasy again. 

Dimo offers, "He already gotz some revenge. He broke my arm." He holds up the bent arm to demonstrate. "But Hy can get it repaired, so mebbe ve should just call it square?"

The soft thump as Klaus falls into the chair Agatha’s vacated sounds louder than it should. Possibly because no one is talking. Klaus straightens out his jacket, taps his fingers on the table, then reaches for Gkika's hand. She twines their fingers together without looking, still glaring at Moloch but also at Oggie and Maxim on either side of him. Klaus says, "I think that would be a good idea, don't you?" 

"Yessir," Moloch mutters.

Gkika offers, "Vy don't hyu go hef a drink vit these three to show dere is no hard feelings? Und, Liza? Hy tink ve can be open again."

The waitress standing by the door nods, and unlocks it. Agatha blinks; she hadn't even noticed her coming back in. 

She's going to head back to the lobster tank with Moloch and her three idiots here, just to keep an eye on things, but Zeetha catches her on the way past. The knife is gone, at least. "I don't think you've been introduced to _my father_ ," she says with a gleam in her eye. "Come be my moral support?"

\--

Gkika's living room at least approximates quiet, and the five of them manage to settle around the table in some semblance of relaxation, even though Zeetha is perched on it again. On the sofa Gkika has an arm thrown over Gil's shoulders, Agatha is leaning against the wall looking like she's waiting for an explosion, and Klaus has settled back in the armchair like a king hearing petitioners. So, of course, he has the first question. "Who are you?"

"Agatha Clay," Agatha promptly answers. "Friend of Zeetha's from university, friend of the Syldavian business community through my parents. It's actually really strange we've never run into each other." She grins. Okay, she didn't say _which_ parents, but Zeetha's not going to be the one to bring up that complicated story. Her father's had enough revelations tonight. 

"Ah, yes." Klaus nods. "The Syldavian business community. And why does the Syldavian business community care whether a Bourdurian exile has an unpleasant run-in with a Ford Fiesta?"

Gkika drawls, "Becawz hyu haz been my friend for thirty-seven years. Friends hlook out for each odder. If dey had _asked_ me like dey vas _suppozed_ to -" from her growl this is something they're going to regret later - "Hy vould hev said, do it, mek de guy regret it."

The tired look is starting to seep back into Klaus's face. He pinches the bridge of his nose, just like Gil does when he's getting a headache. He doesn't sound very glad as he says, "I'm glad for that. You've - done a lot for us over the years." Oh, there has to be a story behind that. "I would still like to know why someone I've never heard of, but who Ms. Clay apparently knows, took it on himself to look into the incident." 

He's being amazingly formal. It must be the stress. It occurs to Zeetha that they're still all speaking English, and English isn't his native language. Or hers. But she doesn't even speak Bourdurian - or Syldavian, inasmuch as it's a different language, which isn't very - and English is probably _Gil's_ native language, and that's a depressing thought all of a sudden. Think about it later.

Gil is staring down at his knees. "He didn't," he says. "This is my fault."

"What?" Klaus frowns in his general direction. 

"I asked Dupree to look into it, and then I let him overhear when she was talking to me." Gil sighs.

Klaus must be turning this over in his head; he goes silent for a few seconds. Finally he says, "Knowing Dupree, you didn't ask her to look into it, you just didn't step in front of her fast enough when she decided it needed to be looked into." The corner of his mouth twitches. "It's only surprising that she didn't break the man's arm herself. Did she work out his motive, by the way?"

"Apparently he was paid to do it."

Right. Klaus is the only one in the room who _doesn't_ know about the shell game with _Castle at Heliotropolis_. As far as he knows, the only thing Martellus has had to with them was buying a Bludtharst. A genuine Bludtharst. 

Agatha clears her throat, loud and distracting. "They did ask me first, Gkika," she says. "It wasn't a wild hair. Jorgi had a good point about making sure there wasn't a repeat attempt." 

Klaus puts his face in his hands. 

They all wait for him to say something else. Eventually he says into his hands, "I'm never going to get the whole story about this, am I?"

"Klaus," Gkika says, not unsympathetically, "hyu need to learn to delegate."

She can see why her mother fell in love with him; they have so much in common. Zeetha stuffs her knuckles in her mouth to keep from giggling. Two horribly intense control freaks, each convinced that if they took an eye of their goals for a second the whole edifice would collapse. The amazing thing is that it lasted long enough for two children to be born,

And she can see why her mother still sounds wistful when the topic of her father comes up. 

Her father gives Zeetha a long, thoughtful look. Well, possibly thoughtful, possibly just tired. "I'm sorry you were caught up in this mess," he offers. "But thank you for leaping to my defense downstairs, if that was what you were doing with the knife."

"It was more of a general attempt not to turn up unarmed at a meleé," Zeetha admits. "But I would have, if it came to it. I still have a lot of yelling at you to do."

"Good." He's smiling. He's actually _smiling_ , and from the startled look on Gil's face it's not a familiar expression. "Come yell as much as you like. Has anyone ever told you how much like your mother you are?"

"Lots of people. Apparently I have her eyes."

Agatha interjects, "But from everything she's told me about her mother, someone else must have provided the common sense."

Through his fingers Gil suggests, "Sheer genetic chance, I think. Regression to the mean."

Given what she's heard about Klaus Wulfenbach, Zeetha can give that idea a lot of credit.

\--

##### Thursday, April 19th, 20:12

So: 

It's been almost a month since the auction.

There are seven of them gathered around the table in the basement of Mamma's. They don't all need to be there, but they all have a right to, at this point. Agatha has a pint of lager, Jorgi a pint of Guinness, Lars a pint of something the waitress had suggested with a lot of words like 'cask-conditioned' and 'original gravity'. Violetta and Gil have ended up with matching gin-and-tonics. Tarvek has his traditional red wine. Zeetha has a thing with a gradient and a tiny umbrella stuck in it, and she's sipping it through a bright blue straw. Her eyebrows are high enough to vanish beneath her fringe. "So," she says. "Why are we gathered here today, friends?"

Agatha takes a deep breath. "We are gathered here today because Martellus von Blitzengaard has done something unpredicted."

"Astonishingly sensible," Tarvek puts in, and sets down his glass. "Not very sporting of him."

Best just to ignore him; he'd had his requisite freakout this morning. Agatha goes on, "Instead of taking the Castle directly to Patel's for their in-house restorers to work on, he's made independant arrangements with Wilkinson and Company to clean it, and then they're sending it straight to a buyer that he somehow sold the damn thing thing to _himself_ , at a _party_ , while we weren't -" Okay. Calm down. The details aren't relevant, they knew Martellus might pull something like this, no plan survives contact with the enemy. "So we have to make the switch right away. The pickup is on Monday."

"Und Wilkinson iz sending their own van for it?" Jorgi scowls.

"They are. That was the first thing I thought of." Agatha drums her fingers on the table. "Pity they're so computerized, or we might be able to do something interesting with the paperwork. And before anyone asks, I don't want to do the switch _at_ Wilkinson."

"Why not?" puts in Gil. "I've been there. They don't have security cameras above the first floor -"

"Which is why they employ human guards. At better than minimum wage. The place is like a museum. No, we're on deadline here. Luckily, I think we can use the party he's throwing on Saturday, because the man has no conception of a _quiet night_ , as a distraction."

Violetta is clutching her glass white-knuckled. "Technically it's Grandma's party," she says to no one in particular. 

That's not relevant. Agatha glares in her general direction rather than say anything. Focus. 

"Hso," Jorgi says. "Ve're lookink at a classik second-story job? Vit live first floor?" 

"Yes. He'll have the dogs in the kennel. It's our best chance at getting in and out completely unnoticed." 

They all contemplate this grim prospect. Well, most of them do, while Gil and Lars look politely uncomprehending - right, new to the business - and Zeetha looks ... hungry. 

Well, time to give her something to chew on. "The painting is hanging in the library, and the library is directly over the terrace. There's no hope of going straight up. We'll have to go in through the bedrooms and move around unnoticed on the second floor. Carrying a meter-square painting both ways, admittedly in a bag, but we can't exactly claim to be lost guests." She takes a deep breath. "We'll just have to be quiet. Extraordinarily quiet. But even getting onto the grounds with it is going to be tricky." 

The thoughtful little frown on Violetta's face makes Agatha wish she were close enough to kiss. "It's a pity the thing's too big to fit in a briefcase, or we could do a Twelve True Fishermen." 

"Probably not even then, it's too small a house," Tarvek says. Since when does he know what a Twelve True Fishermen is? "But you bring up a good point. We know Borgia's will be catering. Nobody counts catering vans." 

"No, but they might check the gate cameras later," Gil points out. 

Agatha sighs. "We don't know how paranoid the mark will be, later. He'll be scrambling to prove his innocence. The gate cameras are a long shot, but he still might pull the tape." 

"So what if he does? Will the caterers even remember how many vans they sent?" Tarvek crosses his arms. 

Jorgi pounds his fist on the table. "Iz no point risking it ven ve can just go over de back wall," he says. "Dey don't record de wall." 

There's a few seconds of silence, then Zeetha raises her glass. "See, now it sounds downright easy." 

Violetta snorts. "It might be if the wall didn't have spikes." 

"You're all forgetting something," Agatha growls. 

Of all people, it's Lars who raises a hand and asks, meekly, "What are we forgetting, Agatha?" 

Good to know one of this crew appreciates her properly. Agatha raises her pintglass. "You're forgetting that I'm the mastermind," she says, and lets herself grin. "Would I have called you here if I didn't already have a plan?" 

\-- 


	12. Chapter 12

##### Saturday, April 21th, 22:20

This isn't going to be the kind of heist where they all communicate through invisible earbuds, because there's no such thing as invisible earbuds, and visible earbuds would be incredibly conspicuous inside, on people who are guests at Grandma's party, because this is the kind of heist that's half con.

And it's not the kind of heist where they all synchronize their watches, either. It can't be. Nobody wears watches these days unless they're deep-sea divers who like to show off. They just check the time on their phones. 

Conveniently, this means if Violetta sneaks a look at her phone anyone who sees will assume she's just checking the time. 

The first code is there, a simple _When are you coming home?_ from Agatha. Violetta slips the phone back in her pockets - thank fuck wearing a blazer over a fancy gown isn't weird enough for anyone here to care about, since they all know she's a programmer and therefore a complete social illiterate - and idly plucks one of the bobby pins from her hair. The one with the little golden bee on the end, that was sitting just over her left ear. Tarvek's not exactly watching her, he's talking to Seffie, but he'll know as soon as he glances in her direction. Which will be - right now. Hah. Violetta tosses back her wineglass, then lowers it in a way that coincidentally dumps most of the rest out into the poor innocent potted plant.

Tarvek flashes a smile at the lady he's been chatting up, not that he'd use so crude a term, and wanders over to her. "What is that, Vi?" he says, low-voiced, but loud enough to be overheard. "Your fourth glass? If the party's that bad I'll call you a taxi, but you know you're just embarrassing yourself."

"Oh, you've been counting?" Violetta scowls at him. 

"Aren't I allowed to worry about you?"

"No. Fuck off, pansy." 

Tarvek's eyes narrow. This can't be a completely one-sided argument, as much as Violetta is looking forward to not being invited back. "Idiot," he hisses. "Has the idea never crossed your tiny little brain that alcohol tolerance is proportional to size?" 

"Oh, so _that's_ how it is?" She pulls herself up to her full height plus heels, bristling, and makes her next word just shy of screaming. "Did you just call me _short_?" 

"Look at you! You don't come up to my collarbone!" He's waving his hands in the air and half the room is looking at them. There's Tweedle himself, holding court by the windows with a plate of cucumber sandwiches. Cousin Leopold and his fiance seem to have been interrupted in the act of showing off their little dog to a woman with an updo that's trying to be a beehive. Varpa is lurking by the French windows, looking vaguely amused as always. Tarvek plants his hands on his hips. "I can't take you anywhere, can I?" 

"I didn't come here _with_ you, you _egotistical little troglodyte_." 

"No, because apparently you had to stop off at the _bar_ on the way! You're three sheets to the wind!" 

"At least I'm not full of hot air!" 

Okay, that was maybe a little too coherent. And Tarvek must agree, because he draws himself up, hissing like a stuck balloon and so red his skin almost matches his hair, and says, "You - I don't - Vi - You _absolute umbrella_ ," he finally manages. 

It's hard not to giggle at the utter insensibility of that line, but Violetta manages to distract herself by throwing the dregs of her wine in Tarvek's face. 

He stands there, shoulders hunched like an angry cat, wine dripping down his glasses. "Fuck you," he bites out. The whole room's watching now. "Fuck you and your utter inability to quit while you're ahead." 

"I can't believe this!" She makes sure she yells it. "You stand here insulting me and making _height_ jokes and then you have the _nerve_ to play the victim when I'm only here at all because you _begged_ me to show up! So you'd have someone smart to talk to at dinner! I guess talking to yourself just doesn't qualify anymore after all the paint fumes!" Violetta has to stop and take a breath. Her face should be nicely red by now. 

Tarvek darts into the gap with, "At least I have the _common courtesy_ not to call people names in public! See if I ever take you out to dinner again," he growls. 

It's piling on at this point, but the whole point of this little argument was to escalate so fast no one was sure quite what was going on. Violetta slaps him, not quite hard enough to knock off the glasses. Then she bursts into tears. 

They're not real tears, but between the screaming-red face and the artistic gasping and trembling, nobody will notice that. Tarvek manages to look taken aback, even as he presses a hand to his cheek. His mouth hangs open. He closes it with a hiss. "Vi, are you sure about the taxi, I really think - " 

"Well, _don't,_ ," Violetta says, and presses a hand to her dry but squinted eyes, and turns on her heel to run out of the room. 

There. Give them something to talk about.

Violetta reaches the gate, not long afterward, looking more or less composed. She pauses on the way to scratch Leopold's stupid Ferrari with her ring, on the basis that it's there. So are a dozen other cars, BWMs and Porsches and all the usual showoff details. The gate guard barely glances at her as she passes, despite her stomping, lurking under his little awning like he's trying to keep out of the rain. It's not raining yet.

There's a taxi parked right outside as well. She must not be the only one fleeing early. The driver is leaning on the bonnet, smoking a cigarette; he straightens up as he sees her, then goes still, looking uncomfortable. "Ma'am? Are you alright?" 

"Oh, just _peachy_." She rubs her eyes. 

"Do you need a ride back to town?" 

She must have overdone it on the miserable look if he's willing to throw over a paying customer. That, or his customer is late, or his customer only wanted a ride back to the train station and he figures she'll want a ride all the way back to the center of town. Violetta shakes her head, staring at the ground. "I just need some fresh air," she mumbles. "But thanks." 

\--

##### Saturday, April 21th, 23:06

"I do hope you're feeling better," Tweedle says. He sounds perfectly sincere about it, too, damn him.

Tarvek attempts a smile, and adjusts his collar. It's still damp. "More or less. I'm so sorry about what happened earlier," he adds, blinking over his glasses. They're in the kitchen; it's quieter in here, just the two of them, a caterer chopping up extra cheese cubes, and a guest he doesn't recognize with head down on the table, tie undone, idly fooling around with an orange that must have come from the living room fruit basket. Now that's what _three sheets to the wind_ actually looks like. "I'm sure Vi didn't mean anything by it. It was really my fault for - " 

"Relax." Tweedle claps him on the shoulder. "Everyone has bad days. What is it Grandma says? Everything is forgivable except bad taste?"

She may well have; it's the sort of thing she would say. Tarvek sighs. "In due time."

"Give it a week and something more interesting will have happened." Tweedle smirks. "There's always a bigger idiot. I rather think it's Leopold's turn, you know. Carried in a purse is no way for a dog to live. I can't believe he'd marry someone with such ... " 

"Bad taste?" 

"Insensitivity." Tweedle sighs, and picks up his glass. "That mouth is going to get you in trouble some day, you know." 

"So people keep telling me." Alright, he's being a little too acidic for a nice, friendly conversation that Tweedle can on _no account walk away from_. "I manage. It's not like I'm working customer service." 

"Ugh. I should hope not." Tweedle shudders reflexively, either at the idea of one of their family taking a menial service job, or at the awful things Tarvek's customers would have to endure, it's hard to tell. "Speaking of which - have you _managed_ ," he says like it's actually a worthwhile pun, "to persuade your sister to part with any of her inherited collection?" 

Tarvek looks down, as if he's ashamed. "I'm trying," he says. "But she's giving me the runaround. Wants to know why I want to know." 

"No chance of getting it as a lot, then?" 

"Shouldn't think so. And frankly, not much hope of getting it piecemeal. I've been talking to her," Tarvek lies. "She's still mad at you. You might have to call her up yourself and apologize." The thought apparently is enough to make Tweedle bristle. Tarvek goes on, "Anevka's developed a sentimental attachment to that Gentileschi, though, so don't expect to get it for love or money, as the saying goes." 

"Gentileschi? I didn't know Uncle Wilhelm had one of those. He didn't keep it on display, did he?" 

"No. _Vulcan and the Golden Maidens_. I think," and he's probably babbling unnecessarily but it kills time and it feels good to let out, "he didn't like looking at a picture of someone with something actually _wrong_ with them. Do you ever get the impression most artists didn't either?" 

Tweedle snorts, as if the idea is beneath his notice. "Matter of taste, don't you think? Some people go for something - idealized. Art's supposed to be an improvement on life." 

What exactly is he supposed to say to that? Blather about art holding a mirror to life? The importance of representation? He'd feel stupid arguing about what art should be, when his most annoying cousin is entirely right, some people have enough grit in their normal life. And some people just don't like being reminded that the world isn't full of sunshine and rainbows, that people suffer and die horrible deaths, that things aren't always resolved neatly by the end of the fifth act. For those people Tarvek feels very little sympathy; let them buy from Tweedle and let them have joy of each other. And with that thought, he's neatly distracted himself longer than it should take to come up with a sentence to reply. He settles for dragging the conversation back on track. "Well, Anevka thinks having that thing in the living room improves _her_ life. The only way you're getting it back is in her will." If for some reason she decides to disinherit her loving husband and the brother who she /believes would move heaven and earth for her, because he'd certainly given it a go, once. "She's not nearly so attached to the sketches, though." 

"Good." Tweedle nods, as if that settles it. "I'm going to need a lot of little, cheap pieces. Stuff to get people through the door and interested. Sell them a thousand-pound sketch and they'll come back in a week with real money." 

"That makes sense," Tarvek tells him, dutifully accepting the advice of an expert. He blinks at the floor a few times. The caterer has headed out the door, presumably to fetch something out of their van, and Tarvek quietly grabs a handful of cheese cubes. 

Tweedle raises an eyebrow, but he doesn't protest. "I have a business plan upstairs if you'd like to see it," he offers. "And - can you keep a secret?" 

Can he _keep them right here_ , is the question, and not move around so much the headache feels worse. That would help. He looks around. Two of them, and the guest who's let the orange fall and is now snoring quietly. "Consider me your stand of reeds," he offers. 

Apparently the cheerful, harmless mood only goes so far; Tweedle crosses his arms. "As I recall, in that story, the secret wound up in every ear in the country. Almost as efficient as Twitter." 

"Sorry. Bad metaphor. I'm not on my best form." He smiles with half his mouth while tries to surreptitiously swallow a cheese cube. 

It works just as badly as he'd expected. Tweedle rolls his eyes, but then he leans  
in closer and lowers his voice as he says, "I just signed a lease for the gallery space."

Well. Apparently his plans have changed. He's given up on taking over the Wulfenbach Gallery in favor of honest competition.

Which is not going to earn Tweedle any reprieves.

"Oh, brilliant," Tarvek says, doing his level best to look honestly admiring. "Big place?"

"Two stories. Two stories in a standalone building with a skylight - I hadn't thought I'd go that far from the city center, but it's not like I need to attract passing trade." That's such a punchable smug smirk Tarvek has to tuck his hands in his pockets to keep from punching it. "You should come by and see. Really, Botnik." And not even Violetta dares to use his old nickname anymore, much less use it like a term of affection. "The skylight's practically as big as the ceiling. It adds to the expense, of course, I'll have to get things cleaned to show them off properly - well, it adds to the profits too. Makes the paintings prettier, and people buy pretty. Ideally at a twenty-percent surcharge."

Encouraging noise. Make an encouraging noise. He has to sit through this now, but on the bright side, it will keep Tweedle distracted for twenty minutes. How often in real life do you catch someone monologuing?

 

\--

##### Saturday, April 21th, 23:17

Agatha pats her hair back into place and glances into the kitchen. She's checked all the obvious places; it has to be here. 

And sure enough: Tarvek, Martellus, a guest passed out drunk on the table, another in the corner texting at high speed, and two caterers spreading out little sandwiches on a platter. Agatha slips in and leans against the wall, adjusting the fall of her Impressionistic jacket. The high heels click on the floor. 

"And a few sculptures, of course," Tweedle is saying. "Marble and bronze. For people looking for a little variety."

"Of course," Tarvek assures him. He looks a little stunned, like he can't wait to get away.

Well, he can just deal. Agatha coughs. "Will you be selling your own work? I've heard a lot about your bronzes." It's Tweedle, she can't lay it on too thick. 

"Agatha! Agatha Clay." Tweedle manages to beam. "I didn't know you were here."

"I'm just here to pick up Tarvek." She lets the dimples imply that she wanted to see Tweedle again, too. "When is your gallery opening? It sounds lovely."

"I'm not sure yet. So much to set up. September, maybe?" Tweedle looks thoughtful. "And none of my own work; I want to focus on the classics."

"Oh?" She grins. "Found anything particularly nice yet? And real?" Let him think she's talking about the fake Manet. 

Tweedle almost preens at that. "Actually, I have," he says. "And sold it already, in fact. It's done wonders for my startup capital."

This general class of scam is called a Batman Gambit. The internet named it, not any actual confidence tricksters, and it's risky. Agatha wouldn't bother if this part of the scheme were load-bearing. It does, however, add verisimilitude. If Tweedle stays fooled for thirty-seven hours, they'll get away with everything. 

Tarvek puts in, "Some people get loans." He sounds amused, at least.

"Some people invest in other people's startups, too." Luckily Tweedle sounds more amused than alarmed. "I, apparently, have long-lost Bludtharsts fall into my lap at the Wulfenbach Gallery's spring sale. I almost kept it," he says, sounding horribly wistful. "It's lovely."

"Oh, that was you?"

"Beat out some dot-com techie for it. And before summer I'll have made twenty-eight percent profit." 

Agatha is glad for Tweedle's sneer. For a few seconds she'd almost liked him.

She does her best wistful sigh. "Does whoever you sold it to give house tours? Or loan to museums? I never got to the sale viewings," she throws in, in the general tone of someone admitting to having been expelled from Oxbridge.

But Tweedle's answering smile is warm. "Actually, I still have it," he says. "You're just in time. The restoration firm's picking it up Monday. Fancy a private viewing?"

"Would you really?"

\--

He unlocks the library, and waves them in with a smug little smile. The noise of the party directly downstairs is drifting up, muffled but unmistakable.

The lights are on a dimmer, and he brings them up unnecessarily slowly. For drama, Agatha supposes. Well. It's a nice library once the lights come up, at least, with comfortable-looking chairs by the fireplace and books loose enough on the shelves, in enough shapes and colours, that clearly people actually _read_ in here. 

And there it is, hung between the windows where it can stand alone and catch the eye. _Castle at Heliotropolis_. 

Agatha lets out a little squeak. 

Behind her Tarvek says, in tones of incredulous annoyance, "You're selling this?"

"Of course. What's the good of keeping something hanging in your house forever?" She's not facing Tweedle, but Agatha can almost see him rolling his eyes. "And now someone else gets to enjoy it, too."

There he is, being almost reasonable. Agatha takes a few steps forward and stretches out a hand in amazement, tracing the shape of the hill with her fingers. "It does need a cleaning," she says, and bites her lip. "Those sky-colours - they're interesting, but they could be _haunting_. I wonder why Bludtharst didn't put any people in the streets?"

Tweedle has come up a little too close behind her. At least he doesn't touch. "You think it's a real Bludtharst, then?"

"Who else could have painted like that?"

From over by the fireplace Tarvek announces, "I'm sure the Wulfenbach Gallery got it appraised or he wouldn't have made twenty-eight percent on the sale. Tweedle, where the hell did you hide the remote for this thing? I'm freezing."

"Are you sure you're not drunk?" Agatha crosses her arms, and bites her lip, and looks sideways at Tweedle. Her phone is buzzing in her pocket; she ignores it. "Sorry. I really did come here to get him home. But. Uh. Maybe not for a few minutes?"

"Take as long as you like." Tweedle makes a little no-worries wave, and goes to turn on the fireplace. 

They spend a few minutes admiring the picture, standing side by side. Agatha reaches out eventually and takes Tarvek's hand. His palms are dry, but there's the slightest tremble in his fingers. It feels strange to try to do gape-mouthed admiration of a picture she's seen before, under clouded varnish she helped crack and soil, but it must be convincing enough. There's a soft noise behind them as Martellus sits down to watch as well. 

Eventually Tarvek leans over, almost far enough to rest his head on her shoulder. "We should go home," he says. 

"Yeah." She slips an arm around his waist, the traditional steering-a-drunken-friend pose, and looks over her shoulder. "Martellus? Thanks. I'm glad we got to see it." 

"You're welcome," he says with regal unconcern, and smiles, and waves them at the door. 

Getting out is easy; they walk as far as the stairs, and then they scramble. Front entry, past the columnar junipers and down the crazy-paving drive. There's a man posted at the gate in the blue uniform of a rent-a-cop, but he barely glances up from his phone as they pass by. Guests leaving aren't his remit, any more than guests coming in on foot were when Agatha got here. Her feet are starting to hurt. High heels and uneven roads don't mix. 

Down the road anyway, past the high hedges. Past the narrow lane, and then past a brick wall with unnerving lacunae that show the thick foliage of some shrubbery behind it, hiding the next house very effectively. The third house has its all-concealing hedge set back a little from the road, and a blocky burgundy shape is sitting on the grassy verge.

Agatha throws open the back door of Maxim's car and slides in. "All clear," she announces. 

In the front seat, Lars and Maxim turn, as synchronized as if they'd timed it, looking back at her. Maxim slowly breaks into a grin. "Notting vent wrong?" 

"Nope. Thanks for hanging around on standby, though." She pats Lars on the shoulder; it still feels a little strange to see him in a suit. Beside her Tarvek pulls the door shut, and there's a click as he locks it. "I think Tweedle is going to sit up half the night staring at the painting. But he'll convince himself it's real and that he never should have listened to the rumours." 

"Tweedle," Tarvek puts in, "is entirely too much of an ego." 

"Well then." Lars' eyes are bright. "Time to go home?"

Agatha finds herself grinning as she toes her shoes off. It's not a very nice grin at all. "Home," she says. Tweedle is going to be very convinced, once he's thought it over, that the Castle is a genuine Bludtharst. It's a good thing they already switched it out for the one made from modern materials. 

\--

##### Saturday, April 21th, 22:16 

It had been a complicated operation. There was timing involved. 

Ten-twenty was the target time. Four minutes before time a van pulled into the narrow lane that ran beside and behind the Von Blitzengaard estate, unnoticed from the house. It was easy to be unnoticed behind the hedges, and behind the tall brick wall with its ornamental spikes, making it very clear these people wanted their privacy. 

Although even they could bend: there was a gate set in the dark back corner of the wall,made of elegant wrought-iron bars, but bars nonetheless, openwork. Maybe they'd never bothered because it was mostly shielded from view, behind an irregular clump of bamboo. And in any case it wouldn't let inconvenient intruders in. The gate was held shut with a chain, and the chain was rusted in place. Nothing human-sized could through.

The van stopped just beside the gate. The back door slid open. Agatha lept out, dressed all in black and wearing a black, curly wig. A few seconds later, a meter-square case followed. It was covered in black fabric; the flat sides held a suggestion of 'packing crate'. Two carabiner clips were clipped onto two handles on one edge. A coil of braided fishing line connected them to two more clips.

It was tricky to balance one-handed, but the case was easily narrow enough to slip through the gate bars without scraping on them. Agatha made sure it was leaning safely against the inside of the wall, and clipped the carabiners to the bars, before she ducked back into the van. 

"All set," she said to Zeetha and Jorgi. "Let's go." 

Zeetha held up Agatha's phone. She was grinning. She'd pretty much not stopped since they asked her to come along for the switch. "Clear to send?"

"Send it."

The phone beeped, and the innocuous text about when she was coming home sped on its way to Violetta. Up front Jorgi pressed the gas pedal, and the van rolled on down the bumpy lane. Agatha glanced at the dashboard clock. Ten-twenty.

\--

##### Saturday, April 21th 22:30

If anyone saw her ducking into the garden they'd just assume she was looking for a quiet place to collect herself after that ugly little blow-up with Tarvek. Luckily, the kind of people who came to Grandma's parties didn't tend to wander out into the gardens and commune with nature, not with so many humans inside to impress. 

And once you got around the house, to the north side with bedrooms and the billiards room and the laundry room, nobody was there at all.

Violetta drifted down the pathway, hunching her shoulders underneath her jacket. It was fine right now, she could still play lost guest. She padded past the empty tennis court. Tweedle and his friends used it in the summer, sometimes, but in the dark and damp it looks like a prison yard. Or a dog run, but the dogs have their nice warm kennel next to the garage, on the east end of the estate. What a stupid word. It was an oversized country house stuck in the middle of an overpretentious suburb, and the giant lawns just made it look like it's trying too hard. She ducked behind the misshapen clump of bamboo. 

The case sat just inside the pedestrian gate, out of view, exactly where Agatha had said it would be. Violetta crouched down to check the clips and the fishing line. 

The next part wasn't difficult, but she did have to move quickly. 

Violetta picked up the case and scrambled for the house. It's impossible to run carrying a giant painting, and it would attract the eyes of anyone who happened to be upstairs. She settled for hurrying. Back past the tennis court, over the lawn to the house, braided fishing line stringing out behind her. They'd tested it with the empty case in the alley behind Mamma's. They hadn't tested it on grass. Grass was slippery, so they hoped. This was all a gamble, and if anything went wrong they'll just have to improvise.

No suspicious eyes at the window. She fetched up next to the house, ducking under the windows - she didn't have far to duck - to steady herself. Third window from the northeast corner, guest bedroom with the wonky mattress for guests Grandma hates. On the ground story under it, home office. Ornamental barberry not far away. Big bushy ornamental barberry. Violetta slipped the painting behind it without more noise than a rustling sound. She could just make out the edge of the gate frame from here, but not the fishing line.

Excellent. 

She patted her hair back into place as she stepped out from behind the bush, and put one hand on the wall. Guest about to leave, drunk and miserable, missing for maybe three minutes while she got some fresh air, or possibly threw up on the lawn. Not that anyone is going to check. 

Time for a quick text to Agatha. _leaving now_ , and after a moment of thought, _my cousin is an arsehole_.

\--

##### Saturday, April 21th, 22:50

The black curly wig sat awkwardly on Agatha's head. The black turtleneck and trousers felt more normal, for all that they were nicer than she'd ordinarily wear on a heist. This wasn't an ordinary heist. Right now Agatha wanted to be noticed. Thus, the glittery kitten heels and multicolored satin jacket. Party clothes, to catch the eye. They certainly caught the eye of the gate guard, who looked up as she stalked past him. "Evening, ma'am."

"Good evening," she said without looking, and kept walking. One, sufficient confidence is rarely challenged. Two, if she looked around, he'd notice how badly she was squinting without glasses. 

Agatha didn't turn from her beeline to the front door until she was almost at it. She circled a potted columnar juniper as if it were the obvious thing to do, and stalked around the east side of the house, the same route Violetta had taken twenty minutes before. A lot could happen in twenty minutes. If they were lucky nothing had. She fished her glasses from her pocket while she walked, and shrugged off the dramatic jacket to roll up and shove into her bag. Her oversized, black bag. It was tricky, splitting the difference between guest and cat burglar. 

Nothing had happened. The case was still there.  
Agatha allowed herself five seconds for the rush of relief to pass. Then she got on with it. Shoes off. Climbing slippers on, gloves on, earbud in. Giant purses were a wonderful invention. She gave a little whistle, just in case.

\--

##### Saturday, April 21th, 22:51

"Yeah. Vell. Hyu think dis is going to work?" Jorgi tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.

"I think it's the best we're going to do on three days notice." Violetta scowled at an innocent blank spot of floor next to the tiedown spot. "I can't believe he scooped us like that. After I snuck into the auction house _twice_. And I got their bloody database password." 

"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy," Zeetha informed them, grinning. She threw a companionable arm over Violetta's shoulders. "At least he told you about it, right?"

"Huh? Why would he do that?"

This seemed to throw Zeetha off, and it took her a few seconds to answer, "But then how did you know so much about him sending off to the restorers?"

"I checked his email." Violetta sighs. "It's harder to hide these days, but I have Grandpa's network password, so I can legitimately use the house's IP address by - " Violetta stopped, because Zeetha was staring at her and blinking. "What? Tweedle is paranoid! He actually checks that!"

"Just impressed at your hacking skills," Zeetha says.

Jorgi looked back at them, blinking. "She iz brilliant," he said. "She getz into email. Banking records. Shtuff people keep hon top-secret vebservers. _Und_ she reprograms helectronic keys."

It wasn't not that hard, really. She just knew a lot of stuff she picked up reading a lot, because that was what you did when you were a tiny shy kid and everyone at school ignored you or called you names and you couldn't manage pretty even when you let your cousin the fashion nerd do your hair and pick out your clothes. Half of hacking was getting people to give you their passwords by spunding official on the phone.

And now, in the thick of it, all she can do is sit and wait. Damn Tarvek for getting the fun job.

\--

##### Saturday, April 21th, 22:52

Shoes in hand, Tarvek peeked around the corner. The couple who Grandpa had met golfing had stopped in the middle of the hallway to argue. "Not like it matters," the old woman in blue was saying to the old man in tweed. "She'll never forgive us anyway, after what happened in Mallorca."

"I will be fine by brunsh." The man in tweed was swaying. "I, I, I am fine right now. Give me my keysh back, you hyena."

"She'll be sorry when we're dead, is that the idea?" The woman threw open the door of the Bad Guest Bedroom. "Come on. If you throw up on me I'm filing for divorce."

Right. They could work around this, Tarvek thought. Agatha must be wondering where the hell he was. Improvise.

Somehow the woman manhandled the man through the door, and shut it hard behind them. This was followed by the high-pitched yelping of someone who'd found the inexplicably placed bootbrush the hard way. 

His family could be a comedy. One of those nasty ones where everyone ends up embarrassingly dead and the audience cheer as they get squished. Tarvek fumbled in his earbud and whistled.

"Where are you?" came Agatha's tiny, tinny voice. "A light just went on in the window."

"I know, I know." He hissed. "Give me two minutes and I'll be in, uh, the one six windows down." Assuming his lockpicking skills weren't rusty. If she actually came up and found him Taevek was reasonably sure he could make Seffie forgive him, or at least take her revenge privately and give Agatha time to escape. 

Less than two, it turns out. He locked the door behind him, and padded over to the window. Seffie kept her room neat and impersonal; if there are knicknacks they were in the nightstand, and he wasn't about to look. He pulled back the lacy curtains, opened the window, and snapped out the screen. It made more noise than he'd like. Oh well. Nobody's listening. He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled out the folded thirty-foot length of climbing rope he'd been keeping wrapped around his waist all night. Gloves on, clip one end of the line to - hm - that table leg over there. "You there?"

"Right below you." 

Tarvek leaned out the window and looked straight down. He could, since he was looking for it, make out a pale face surrounded by a curly black wig. He dropped the other end of the line. 

"Got it," Agatha said a few seconds later. "Haul away."

Climbing rope was designed to support the weight of an adult human. A painting, even a big painting on a wooden panel in a case, weighed less than an adult human. It weighed, though, and he couldn’t let it bounce, or scrape too badly on the bricks. By the time he got it up his arms were starting to hurt. And they still - oh dear. "There's no drainpipe here," he breathed to Agatha, as he lifted the painting inside. "Maybe you should go up through the kitchen. "

"I don't know." Pause. "How _much_ stronger are you than you look? I could get partway up with the windowsills, but I might need a boost between stories. Should have brought my brick key." 

Well. 

"Strong enough to lift you a meter," he said, and tossed the line back down.

It would be fascinating to watch her work, except he couldn't look down. Tarvek braced himself against the wall, fingers white-knuckled on the rope. At first he didn't feel anything, though he could see it sway just a little where it went over the windowframe. "First sill," Agatha reported.

They were over the laundry room. Nobody was going to be staring longingly out the laundry room window. He pulled back the robe, hand-over-hand. 

"Okay," Agatha said, "brace me, I need the rope for a handhold for this part." 

"Bracing." 

He couldn't let go, he couldn't let his arms give out, Agatha would fall. She trusted him with this. Failure was not an option. The robe was taut and his muscles were starting to ache, just a little, it wasn't hard to be stronger than you looked when you looked like a spindly little - It felt like it had been longer than a few seconds.

A pair of gloved hands appeared on the sill. Barely a moment later a curly black wig followed, and then Agatha was inside. Her giant purse was slung over her shoulder and her expression was a grin that reminded him of Zeetha. 

She didn't even look like she was breathing hard. She unclipped the rope from her belt - not safe, all kinds of unsafe, climbing rope is rated against falls and random belts certainly aren't, despite the strength of leather. No point saying all that, though. Her original plan had involved a drainpipe. He hadn't complained about that one either. She _was_ a first-class thief. Getting in second-story windows came with the job. 

Instead he said, the bottom falling out of his stomach, "I should go make sure the coast is clear."

"Go," Agatha said, and flashed him a grin. "But take your gloves off." 

Right, if anyone came upstairs they'd be more likely to notice the gloves than the earpiece. He blushed a little. "Whatever you say."

There was no one between Seffie's room and the library. It was locked; he pressed his ear to the door, on the offchance, but - "Coast is clear," he said. 

"Good."

"I'm going downstairs now to play interference." He'd locked the east staircase coming up; the west didn't have doors, and it was closer to the library. Worst case, he'd trip anyone who tried to up it, and the noise of the crash would warn Agatha.

Her voice is warm and amused in his ear. "Shoes, gloves, earbud." Right. He'd almost forgotten the gloves; he drops his shoes to yank them off. "Good luck."

"You too. Signing off," he says, and pulls out the earbud to drop in his pocket.

\--

##### Saturday, April 21th, 23:04

Agatha could hear the noise of partygoers downstairs, through the bug Tarvek had left on in his pocket, a distant chattering. Sound and fury signifying nothing. If Tarvek started to yell, that would signify. 

"Oh," she heard him saying to no one in particular. "What a nice Manet."

Time to go. She picked up the counterfeit Castle by its edges, balancing it against her hip. 

She had just picked the lock on the library door when the too-familiar voice of Twee- Martellus cut through the party noise. "Oh, there you are, Botnik," it said, and despite the adrenaline spike she couldn't help but muffle a snicker. _Botnik?_

"Tweedle," Tarvek drawled. "Were you looking for me?"

"Let's go talk somewhere more private, shall we?"

"But I was admiring your Manet."

"Come back and admire it later. I want to talk business." 

Damn and blast, there's never _one_ thing that goes wrong, is there? She'll just have to move fast. Very fast. And get lucky. 

She unhooks the Castle from the library wall while Tarvek is uncomprehending and distracted at his cousin. Tweedle had used the earthquake-proof locking hangers. Or rather, Gil and Dupree had. And Agatha carried the right tool for disconnecting them, of course she did, but it still took time to do in the dark, and then redo, and she'd locked the library door behind her but what if Martellus wanted to talk business in the library? But Tarvek was demanding a drink first, and intertwining it with a rambling apology for the fight earlier. 

Out, glance both ways, and she was off down the hall, trusting to her dark clothing and luck. 

Her luck held down three corridors. She padded silently back into the empty bedroom, and locked the door behind her. The case and climbing rope were still there; leaving them in an unlocked room had been a calculated risk, better than having to pick the lock again. 

The important thing now was to move fast.

Painting in case, case shut, climbing rope - looped, she decided, it might snag if she left it to drag, she has a big purse to smuggle it out. She hefted the case to the windowsill. "Pickup? Ready to move?" 

After a second Jorgi's voice in her ear said, "Ready." 

"Move now."

One hand tangled in the rope, one hand steadying the case. She could just make out the fishing line, trailing down to the bush it had been hidden behind so briefly; it was a good thing they'd put in plenty of slack. Down, out, hand over hand. Past the window below. It hit the ground without a noise; Agatha is right at the end of the rope, and she had to lean out the window to let the case fall flat. Her leg was stuck in the air to counterbalance as she undid the rope and pulled it up. 

"All clear," she whispered into the heatset. "Where are you?"

"Pulling up to the gate." She couldn't see them from here, between the wall and the bamboo and the mottled shadows of tennis court fence, but that was good. It made it less likely anyone would wonder what they're doing.

"Good. I'm headed downstairs. Fire at will." That's a joke, but Jorgi knew what she meant: this part of the operation was his to command. She had different fish to fly. He acknowledged, and she pulled off the earbud and dropped it in her purse beside the climbing rope.

Climbing slippers off, heels on, jacket on, and finally, wig off. She shook out her hair and ran her fingers through it, trying to make it look artlessly messy instead of wigheaded. Th

Before she put the windowscreen back in she glanced down at the case again. It was already not where she'd put it, inching with one corner onto the lawn. Excellent. No longer her problem, at least not for the moment.

The plan she'd come up with had too many moving parts. It even involved keeping people on call in case something unexpected happened. It was an awkward kludge, whose sole saving grace was that they'd gotten it together in three days, the kind of plan that wouldn't have worked at all if they'd had to bypass more security than one distracted rentacop - for example, if the dogs were running loose, the way Tweedle usually let them, or if they'd listened to Violetta three years ago when she and her grandfather had that screaming argument about cameras. The kind that was currently relying on nobody noticing she'd never actually swept majestically _up_ stairs, but - humans were careless. If need be she'd brazen it out.

\--

##### Saturday, April 21th, 23:14

"It sure feels caught." Violetta tugged the line one more time, just in case, "Can you see the line from where you are?"

"In de van tree feet away from you?"

"And four feet over my head," she snapped. "Work with me here."

"Dis is vy Agatha did not like dis plan," Jorgi grumbled, but he obligingly leaned out, taking hold of the gate bars for balance, and tried to look up, around the stand of bamboo and past the tennis court, to make sure the case was safely on its way. After a moment he said, "Hy can't see anything. Keep pulling."

"It's not a bad plan," Zeetha offered. 

Violetta snapped, "No, but it requires her to be at the party grifting so we can't beg for help if anything goes wrong and I really think something just did. Never cut off your mastermind. This is why we need those invisible earbuds like they have in Leverage."

"Pity dey don't make dem in real life," Jorgi intoned. 

Violetta leaned back, putting her weight, such as it was, into pulling. Nothing. She took a deep breath. "I think it's time for the backup plan."

Zeetha hopped out of the van, and gave Violetta a thoughtful look. "Nah," she said. "I have a better idea."

"What? Forgot-my-phone isn't that ridiculous."

"Over-the-wall is less obvious," Zeetha informed her, and before Violetta could muster an objection, she was scrambling up the van ladder. 

The wall was eight feet high, topped with spikes. "Hey!" Jorgi hissed. "How are hyu - " But she'd already jumped from the van roof to the wall, and as they watched she flipped around, grabbed the spikes for balance, and dropped down. A moment later here was a barely audible thump.

Violetta dropped the fishing line to put her face in her hands. 

She felt a hand ruffling her hair, and looked up. Zeetha was grinning at her through the gate. "Don't worry," she said, "I'll be back in a jiffy. Is that what you people say here? A jiffy?" Violetta shook her head in mute horror. "A trice, then. Tse-yalli." She vanished around the clump of bamboo.

After a while Jorgi offered, "Dun vorry. She knows vat she's doing." He paused and added, "Hy just vish _Hy_ knew what she iz doing."

"Saving our bacon. Sparing me arguing if the gate guard's developed common sense. What I want to know is how she's getting back over the wall."

"Hy tink," Jorgi offered, "Hy gives her a boost up tru de gate."

Violetta wilted. "She's going to get caught," she muttered. "Someone is going to wonder why someone in jeans is running around the back gardens in the middle of a party. The spare bedroom has two people in it, Grandpa could have gone to bed early - The whole fishing line plan was supposed to reduce risk."

"Nobody noticed somevun climbing in Miz Xersephnia's bedroom vindow. Dey is all drunk or busy handing out little sausages hon sticks." Jorgi scowled as he sat down on the bumper; she could barely see it in the shadow of the wall. "Dis is why ve brought Zeetha, in caze someting vent wrong."

"I know all that. Let me panic in peace, would you?"

That got a sigh, but Jorgi shut up. 

She wasn't sure how much later it was - looking at her phone right now would be a good way to drive herself mad, or do something stupid like text Agatha and distract her while she was sweet-talking Tweedle - but it felt like an hour before Zeetha reappeared around the stand of bamboo, somehow holding the meter-square case off the ground in one hand like it was a particularly awkward, oversized suitcase. From the motions of her other hand it looked like she was reeling in fishing line as she walked. 

Zeetha was grinning as she lifted it to slide through the bars, and it made her canine teeth stand out. "See? No trouble at all."

Violetta drew a breath to protest. Then she let it out again. Why argue? "What was the matter?"

"Line got wrapped up in the bush when they switched windows. No big deal."

Right. At least they had a backup plan. Violetta quietly seethed as she took the rea - the version of _Castle at Heliotropolis_ that Tarvek did on genuinely old wood, with the same kind of paint Bludtharst would have used, as opposed to the one Gil did on fresh wood and covered with modern varnish, that looks fine at a glance but won't stand up to cleaning. Violetta lifted the case into the van while Jorgi held his hands through the gate for Zeetha to step on. They hadn't practiced this. But they worked together like trained acrobats; Zeetha hefted herself up hand-over-hand on the bars while Jorgi slowly straightened up, until his hands were level with his shoulders. It was high enough for Zeetha to grab the spikes again and pull herself up the rest of the way, for all that his shoulders must have ached with the strain of having so much weight on the ends of his arms. Being so tall and strong must be nice.

And coordinated. Zeetha must have gotten on top the wall without impaling herself on the spikes, somehow, because a few seconds later Violetta could feel the van shift as Zeetha's weight landed on it. She stuck out a hand automatically to steady the case. 

Less than a minute later the van was pulling away. 

"That was fun," Zeetha said, as she ran her fingers through her hair to dislodge the bits of brush that had somehow ended up there. "We should practice getting over walls more, though."

"If you're going to pull a stunt like that again," Violetta growled, "we should just get out the ladder." 

Jorgi gave a heavy sigh, and the van pulled smoothly back onto the main road; even from her seat on the back floor Violetta could make out the sudden shifting light patterns of the streetlights. "Any plan vere hyu drive away vut de loot is a good plan," he said. "Let it go. Ve won."

"Hey." Zeetha was almost bouncing in her seat. "Is that official? I think I need to invite my brother over for a drink."

Yeah. Alright. They did get away clean. "Wait until we're out of the neighborhood," Violetta advises, and let herself grin. "Agatha needs a drink too." 

\---

##### Sunday, April 22nd, 00:12

Gil finds himself glancing around Zeetha's flat as if police officers were about to leap out of the walls. Which. Well. There is a stolen painting sitting on her sofa, looking out of place against all the scientific posters, and even eerier than it was meant to under the mismatched fluorescent lights.

He must have been looking longer than he meant to, because he feels an arm thrown over his shoulders and a voice in his ear. "You like it?" A voice with an American accent. "A pity that idiot with the red hair outbid me."

He turns to look at Lars, blushing automatically. "You did a good job driving him up," he says. "I wasn't sure if we could hit half a million without actually claiming it was a Bludtharst."

"Well, I'm glad I could help," Lars says, in his more usual accent. "It was a lot more interesting than doing Guard Number Three, I'll tell you that."

"Why did you? I mean, I'm glad you did, but you weren't playing Guard Number Three when we asked, you were in the middle of an extended run as Miles Gloriosus, you were rehearsing for Henry the Fifth this afternoon -"

"Do you really want to know?" 

Gil opens his mouth, then closes it again. There's something stubborn in Lars's eyes, the expression of a man about to make someone hideously uncomfortable. Well, so be it; he can handle worse. And if he can't, maybe Zeetha will come rescue him. She's busy now explaining the history of all the rockets on her poster to an increasingly glazed-eyed Maxim, but she's not out of range. Gil takes a deep breath. "Yeah. I do."

"Two reasons," Lars says, and holds up his fingers. "One. I moved in with Agatha a year ago. Five months ago, my boss at the cheese counter - "

"Cheese counter?"

"Nobody makes a living as an actor unless they're in movies." His eyes are dancing. "I used to work at the cheese counter at Waitrose, for a complete ass. He tried to change my shift at the last minute, to an afternoon when I was supposed to be in a panto and he'd known that since the first of November. I told him yes, sir, because I wasn't going to make rent as Columbina but I might as Cheese Expert Number Two. I called Agatha on my break to complain. She pointed out I hadn't paid rent since April, and suggested several places my manager could stick it. I passed on the suggestions and hung up my little paper hat for good. And I do work part-time at a coffeeshop now, in the most cliche of fashions, but I'm still not paying any rent." His expression is somewhere between a fond smile and a smirk. "If I'm going to be a kept man, shouldn't I earn my keep?"

Alright, the uncomfortable truth is saying that to someone whose plan for making rent involves living with his father for the next thirty years,, and who's gone on continental vacations every year since he was eight, and who regularly hands people enough money to buy a secondhand car in return for pieces of paper with chalk scribbles on them. "That makes sense," Gil says faintly.

Lars pats his shoulder. "Reason two, I knew if I said no, I'd spend the rest of my life cursing myself for missing out. I'm guessing that was your reason?"

"Something like that," Gil says faintly, and rubs the back of his head. "And, well, it was Agatha asking. If someone breaks into your back room at two in the morning just to make a photocopy - they must have a very good reason. Don't you think?"

"You'd hope so."

"I did," says a voice from behind them.

They both look. Agatha is tapping her fingers on her belt. "And look how beautifully it turned out," she says. "Now we just have to sell the real one."

Lars beams at her. "Have any leads yet?"

"I can't even put out enquiries until there's a police report about the forgery to prove we didn't knock _this_ one up in a garage. But I know who I'll enquire with."

"It's a pity," Gil finds himself saying. "I kind of want to take it home and hang it up in my bedroom."

Lars starts to snicker. But Agatha squeezes Gil's shoulder and gives him a sympathetic look, like she knows exactly the feeling he’s talking about. Well, she's been copying paintings, and swapping them, and selling them, for years. She must have wanted to take a few home to keep. "Talk to Tarvek," she says. "He'd love to do one that wasn't doomed to age three hundred years in a week."

\--


	13. Chapter 13

##### Friday, April 27th, 17:58

"It's only been a week. Maybe they're just backlogged." 

"Maybe," Zeetha suggests, grinning. "Or maybe you did such a good job Wilkinson's is completely fooled and you'll just have to settle for twice the price of the Castle and think of some other hideous revenge. I bet I could get a half-brick through his bedroom window. And then a Molotov cocktail."

"Except if nobody knows the one he's trying to sell is fake, everyone will assume the one _we're_ trying to sell is, well. A forgery." 

"Will they really? Doesn't Agatha have a reputation for being sneaky?"

"Sneaky, yes. Able to fool forensic tests, no." Gil stares down at his hands. He'd been amazed enough when Tarvek's Castle made it through the appraisal unchallenged, even though he _knew_ the man was using all the right tools, and the right pigments, and either some variation on the Bakelite trick that was the execrable Van Meergeren's one stroke of genius, or a baking trick that no other arti - forger had worked out. _It's just a coincidence, we got it from a different seller than The Cambist, that's why we do forensic tests_ \- he could have said them all until his throat was sore and it wouldn't have given a solid backbone to his craven mutterings of _Sorry, Father_. He stares at the lobster tank, watching Zoing gently bobbing up and down as he human-watches.

Zeetha claps a hand on his shoulder. "Relax," she says. "And we're in public, sort of, so maybe we should talk about this later?"

Hardly anyone comes back here. Hardly anyone realises the seats on the other side of the lobster tank _exist_. It is for reasons like that that Gil is living and unarrested, and not because he has any sense. His sister got all the sense in the family. Gil lets his head fall to his arms. 

There's a gentle tug on his hair. "Hey, we can talk about it on the way," she says, gently. "But for now let's talk about the holiday? Have you ever been on an airplane before? A little one, I mean, I know you've been on commercial flights." 

"No. Nothing smaller than a commuter prop plane." At least he'll be thoroughly distracted. And in between bouts of soaring away from the ground in a tiny metal contraption that will plummet to the ground if anything breaks in its complicated engine, he can hang out with his sister. Trade weird growing-up stories. It is, he's a little surprised to notice, a cheering thought. "What did you learn to fly in?"

"Cessna 172, just like we're getting this weekend. Most popular plane in the world." Zeetha looks a little wistful. "I hope my reflexes aren't gone. It's been too long."

"You've been busy," Gil protests. Also, hiring a plane is expensive and she might not have been able to justify it, but fifteen percent of five hundred twenty-five thousand pounds nicely covers a few indulgences.

Zeetha concedes the point with a rueful little wave. Zoing bobs around to look right at the two of them, waving his antennae. A waitress with gold fang earrings pokes her head around the tank, apparently concedes that they don't need help, and vanishes again.

"Are you sure your - our father doesn't want to come?"

 _Are you sure you'd want him around?_ would be the flippant answer, but Zeetha takes family seriously. Gil says instead, "I'm sure. He said the last time he was in a plane that size, people were shooting at him. And that he'd just as soon stick to jumbo jets. Also that he thought we should get some sibling bonding in without him around to bother us, I'm almost sure that was a joke."

It's making Zeetha laugh, anyway. She presses a hand to her mouth to keep the giggles in, and says through her fingers, "How thoughtful. Did he specify who was shooting at him?"

"The people he'd stolen the airplane from," says a voice from around the corner of the lobster tank. Gil jerks; he's sure he should have seen movement there. "I'm sure your mother can tell the story better than I can."

"Really? I'll have to ask her." Zeetha leans back and grins at Klaus as he takes the third chair. "Looking forward to your quiet weekend in?" She's waggling her eyebrows in a way Gil is sure is not actually meant to make him blush horribly, because she's not that sort of person, but some things he just doesn't want to think about regardless of how glad he is that his father and Gkika have finally decided to hook up. They'll be good for each other. The details can just stay beyond his ken.

Apparently Klaus shares his opinion, because all he says is, "Not as much as if my children weren't about to leave the ground in something capable of returning to earth in a fiery crash."

"Aw, are you upset I've infected Gilgamesh with a sense of adventure? You know," she adds brightly, "if you wanted him to lead a boring, ordinary life, you shouldn't have named him Gilgamesh."

Klaus sighs. His shoulders are a little hunched, and the crow's-feet are more prominent combined with the dark bags under his eyes that seem to be a permanent feature these days, but there's a hint of a smile as he tells them, "Your mother liked the name too, you know."

"Oh? Trying to deflect the blame?"

"It's a very nice name," Gil points out. "I've never met anyone else with it but people can still spell it in one go. Do you know how many Klauses there are in the world?" Not to mention the Santa jokes, but he's not going to give Zeetha ideas on that front.

The hint of a smile curves up into a full-blown grin. Gil blinks. He can't remember the last time he saw his father looking so happy. But Klaus keeps grinning as he says, "And how many bad jokes? At least Sun stuck to the _grammar_ jokes."

"Sun?" Zeeths blinks.

"Doctor Sun Jen-djieh. Old friend. His granddaughter works at the gallery. I'll have to introduce you when you get back." And now he's looking stern again, but still with a twinkle in his eye and it's so strange to see Klaus Wulfenbach _happy_. "Which, I should remind you, involves getting the plane to the ground in _one piece_." 

"Don't worry," Zeetha says. "I've never had problems with that part."

\--

##### Saturday, April 28th, 11:14

"She'll be down in a few minutes, honey." The waitress - she's not wearing a nametag, but Tarvek is pretty sure he heard someone call her Cass - grins. She has canine teeth almost as prominent as Gil's, and her cloud of curly blue hair and epauletted jacket make an odd combination. "What was it you were wanting her for?"

"I have a present for her." Tarvek does his best to match the smile. "Miss - Cass, was it?" She nods. "Could you fetch me a glass of house red while I'm waiting? And one for yourself, if you like." 

After all, if he's going to spend much time at Mamma's, he should do his best to make a good impression on the waitstaff. And Tarvek has come to suspect his future will involve a lot more time at Mamma's. Two very good friends of his like the place. One of them liked it so well, he sent his lobster to come live there.

It still gives him a pleasant little shiver when he thinks that he and Gil are friends again, which is how he knows he's in over his head. 

Tarvek is halfway through the glass of wine before Gkika appears, hair combed and wearing jeans, but still looking artlessly tired. She slides into the seat beside him with casual, feline grace. "So Hy heard hyu vanted to gif me sumting," she says, without preamble. 

"I did. Just a little something I ran across recently that might tickle your fancy." He pulls it from his shoulderbag and shoves it down the bar to her. He framed it himself, of course. No point having people asking nosy questions.

Gkika stares at the Rembrandt print for a long while.

"Vat a nice young man," she finally says. Tarvek wonders if she means him, or the young man in the velvet cap who's smiling indulgently out of the frame. "How did hyu happen to come by dis?"

"Funny story. A man named Omar von Zinzer got it as a gift from a friend. He was more into cars than art, so he consigned it to an auction house. My cousin happened to passing by and found it, and I remembered that you'd been looking for a Rembrandt print. This one seemed suitable." There. All technically true, but it manages to sound like every step was above-board, too. Gkika's smart, Gkika's in the ... business, she'll know what he means.

Apparently she knows perfectly well, because she smiles, looking very smug. "Oh, _very_ suitable. Hy'll have to hang it up over my bed vere Klauz und me can admire it all de time."

"I rather thought you would. Since the Wulfenbachs have so far not delivered on their promise."

"Dey got a busy schedule. Iz no big thing." Despite this declaration. Gkika is staring in rapt attention at the print. She picks it up, tilts it a little, and nods. "Hyu sure dis vun is autentic?"

"You wound me, madame."

"Hy know hyu, sveethot."

"It was actually sold through the Wulfenbach Gallery last year, so feel free to ask them for a second opinion." Tarvek lets himself smirk. "Do it while I'm there, in fact. I want to see the look on their faces."

Gkika leans back and crosses her arms. "Und vat do hyu vant for dis? Iz kind of a big thing to hev a charitable impulze about."

"Just wanted to leave you with a good opinion of me, madame." He smirks. Sometimes there's no harm in telling the absolute truth. "Since I hope we'll be seeing a lot more of each other."

"Hoh? Und vhy iz dat?" She matches his smirk, but adds a skeptical raised eyebrow. "Hyu'z known Agatha for a long time und hyu hardly ever come by."

Two and a half years. It feels longer, sometimes. He spreads his hands. "Agatha doesn't come to Game Night. Gilgamesh does."

"Iz like dat, iz it?"

"Well. I hope it's going to be."

Gkika's face turns serious. "If hyu vant romance vit Gil, hyu should know dat he doesn't -"

"- have any interest. He's made that clear." Tarvek looks away. It had hurt the first time, and it still hurts to think about, but apparently he's enough of a masochist to stick around. "I just want to be friends with him again," he admits, quietly. "There aren't many people I can ..."

"Hadmit to being a profezional forger around?" Her voice is soft, but he can still hear the smirk.

Dammit, now he's blushing. "That's not what I meant!" That would be a little more convincing if he knew what he had meant. "Do you actually care? You're still getting the Rembrandt print of it. I figured you deserved it more."

"Hy care about Gil not getting hiz heart broken," Gkika says, and gives a lazy grin that shows off her teeth. "But Hy iz not complaing about vere you got dis fellow from. Not in de least."

\--

##### Sunday, April 29th, 15:47

The rain's let up, at least. It's practically a beautiful day. Zeetha stretches, focusing on the distant shape of a Piper Cub silhouetted against the clouds to the east, while Gil fiddles with the keys of the rental car. She should really learn to drive on the left, too. Her brother's been quiet since they touched down, but he should have had time to process by now. "What do you think? Want to do it again sometime?"

" _Absolutely._ "

She looks over her shoulder. Gil has stopped still, one hand on the door handle, an expression of rapt delight on his face. "That was _wonderful_ ," he says. "I want a pilot's license. And a plane. Can we split a plane?"

It's a good thing her brother turned out so adorable. Zeetha turns to leans on the car roof, propping her chin on her hands. "You know," she informs him, "I _had_ a plane."

"Past tense? Why did you get rid of it?"

"Because I couldn't take it to university with me, duh." She rolls her eyes. "I sold it to my cousin Zoniax. Our cousin Zoniax," she corrects herself. "You'll like her."

"Zoniax Solina? The marathon runner?" He blinks a few times. And here she'd thought his appreciation of sports ended with football. 

"Exactly. She made me promise to turn up at all her Olympic events and cheer, by the way." It won't be as nice as competing herself would have been, but Zeetha had known last summer that her team was out of the running. It's not that bad. She got to university earlier, and that was how she met Agatha, and _that_ 's paid off threefold. And Zeetha can't brood for long, watching her brother looking like a man who's just fallen in love. "She also said I can use the plane whenever I'm home, so we'll get you some practice this summer, how's that?"

"Yes please." Gil sighs, face going wistful and soft. "I don't know how I never tried flying before. It's ..."

"So much _fun_?"

"Yeah." His eyes crinkle. 

"I think you scared that poor instructor when you started whooping, though."

"If she's not prepared for people to start whooping with joy she shouldn't have become a flight instructor," Gil says, with great dignity. "Come on, let's get out of here. I need some tea."

How very British of him.

They're pulling back onto the highway before Gil says to her, very suddenly, "Ten years to break ground on the spaceport, you said?" 

"Or something like that. It's not like we have a project timeline ready; that was just what Mother guessed. Why?" 

"Just curious." He's drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, as if the flying lesson awoke some well-hidden restlessness in him, and staring out the windscreen at the wispy cirrus clouds, already starting to turn "There's probably nothing one art gallery can do to help." 

There probably isn't, but now that her brother is mixed up in Agatha's ... business, same as Zeetha is - there might be things he, personally, could do. If it all works out. At a minimum, he can do intelligence work for them, same as Agatha is going to ask for from Tarvek. A lot of wealthy and powerful people pass through the Wulfenbach Gallery. 

But the most important job is going to be Agatha's, if it all works out. Coming to university early worked out amazingly well for Zeetha. She met a first-class sneak thief with personal ties to the old Syldavian government. 

Half a century ago, humans rode a nuclear rocket to the Moon. Then the plans vanished in the chaos of the Cold War. If Zeetha can get them _back_ \- 

Physics doesn't change. Politics does. And their own space program, at launch costs a quarter any chemical-fuel spacecraft, will make sure her country stays on everyone's maps. 

\--

##### Sunday, April 29th, 23:52

"And how long is this Homburg fellow going to be away?" 

"That's the thing. He hardly ever leaves London." Agatha spreads her hands. "But if we can get him away, there's a perfectly lovely Caravaggisto in his bedroom." 

Jorgi leans back against the headboard and grins. "Und hyu tink Lars here could help vit de getting him out uv de city?" 

"Possibly. It's a long shot." Agatha sighs. "The things is, Homburg is also a collector of Napoleonic memorabilia, and he's an _insufferable blowhard_. If he was invited somewhere to talk about his collection, he'd jump at the chance. Conveniently, there's a re-enactment society in Virginia that's holding its annual big meeting at the end of May." 

Lars blinks, then, slowly, begins to grin. "I see," he says, in a flat American accent. "Our Guest of Honor dropped out at the last minute? And naturally we thought of Homburg?" 

"Something like that." Agatha pats his shoulder. "You know how to improvise." 

"How much do I actually have to know about Napoleonic memorabilia to pull this off?"

"Mmm. I'll send you the last few years' newsletters from the re-enactment society. That and whatever the library has should do. Remember, if you get it wrong, you're desperately stressed and in awe of his superior knowledge." 

"Awe. Right." Lars picks up Agatha's hand and presses a kiss to the tip of her thumb. "So imagine I'm talking to you," he says, and wraps his lips around her index finger. 

Oh, that's not fair at all, she's already worn out. Agatha gasps at the sudden stimulation, and closes her eyes. She can feel a hand carding through her hair. It must be Jorgi, there's no way Lars could reach. When exactly did they start collaborating? "If that helps," she gasps. "But timing - I still have to - make the replacement -" 

"For dis guy?" Jorgi's breath is warm in her ear all of a sudden. "Hy tink hyu could do it on a Xerox machine." 

"Hush. Professional pride." 

"Vatever hyu say." He's pulled her hair aside to press his face to her neck, and she can feel him grinning. 

"How long does that take?" Lars looks up from the very interesting things he's doing to her nipples. "Just out of curiosity. Professional curiosity, I guess." For some reason this thought seems to cheer him.

Well, Lars is one of the team now. He's entitled to some curiosity. "It depends on the size of the painting and the level of detail. Twenty hours, maybe, for something I don't expect to be looked at under a microscope. It's not like I have to do the layout from scratch." She sighs. "It's not nearly as difficult as doing my own pieces. Or as interesting." 

"And you don't even get to show them. It doesn't seem fair."

"Well, if you think about it like that, they each get at least one, very important, showing. To people who think they're Old Masters, at that." Agatha finds herself grinning. "Arranging the showings, that's the fun part. Speaking of which. Homburg."

"Right." Jorgi's pulled away and is propped up on one elbow, looking abstractedly smug. "How are ve getting in dis time?"

"It's a tower block with a concierge, but I went over last Friday and cased the joint, and nobody tried to stop me getting onto the elevators. Daylight job. In and out as guests with giant suitcase, I think." 

"Hiz there cameras?" 

"There are so many cameras they'll never notice if the sixth story is showing the same thing it did the previous day." 

"So, hat least tree trips." 

"Exactly. Maybe four, depending on how hard it is to get the recordings, but I think they're using an Apex camera setup, and those have net access by default and frankly terribly information security." Agatha stretches, enjoying the warm sheets against her skin. It's probably not very professional to be talking about all this in bed, but what's the point of having your lovers on your heist crew if you can't at least combine business and pleasure when you're brainstorming a job? They'll do a formal briefing later. "Homburg's flat has a mechanical lock, so that won't slow us down. He doesn't believe in interior cameras; we'll move fast just in case there's an alarm system, but if we can't get in and out and back down the stairs in three minutes I'll eat my hat." 

"You don't wear a hat," Lars points out, smirking a little. 

"Fine. I'll give up my share of the take on this lovely little landscape I want to liberate from an investment banker after we finish the Homburg job." 

Jorgi chuckles. "Hyu never stop lookink for a score, do hyu?" 

From somewhere in the vicinity of her collarbone Lars says, "Be fair. There are so many suckers just begging to have their art taken away and sold to someone who'll appreciate it properly." He sounds like he means it, too. Well, she's glad that she picked a boyfriend who appreciates her philosophy of life, even if that wasn't what she was looking for. 

"True." Jorgi sounds like he's stifling laughter. "Hyu's de boss." 

"Exactly." Agatha lifts one hand to bury in Jorgi's hair and yank him down, and gets the other one under Lars's hip and behind to tug him against her. "But I'm glad I have such excellent minions." 

\--

##### Tuesday, May 1st, 13:04

Violetta is staring at her laptop, as usual. She's doing it in a coffee shop, which isn't usual, but the latest round of emails with her _idiot clients_ who shouldn't be trusted to _pick their own clothes_ left her shaking with rage, and she's significantly less likely to throw things in a public place, with friendly people who only very rarely mess up her order bringing her coffee. Also, low blood sugar is bad for the temper. Tarvek keeps telling her that and then he keeps shoving food at her like some kind of hint. So: coffee shop, chocolate croissant and multiple lattes, and an attempt to smash their stupid, incompatible specifications together. Quitting and taking up phishing is looking better every day. 

It's so bad, she's downright relieved when when she hears the ping of an incoming call request. Maybe it will be her clients calling to say they've decided to cancel the project and move to a monastery in deepest Tibet. Well, she wouldn't wish that on the poor Tibetan monks. But other than than it's a nice mental image. 

Better yet, it's Seffie. Violetta shoves in her headset and something unknots in her neck. "Mondarev Consulting," she says with a grin. "Skulls hammered, necks snapped, hearts ripped bleeding from the chest cavity. What can I do for you today?" 

"That bad, is it?" Seffie is smirking. From the background she's in a library study room; there's a shelf with half a dozen books and Violetta can make out the bottom half of a poster (" - And Dewey Decimal Equivalents"). "Just wanted to catch you up on some gossip." 

"Gossip." Violetta raises an eyebrow. "You usually don't rush to the computer in the middle of the day for gossip." 

"Oh, but this is the good stuff. Colette called me from work to make sure I knew to stay out of the line of fire. Apparently," and she arches one perfectly shaped eyebrow, "my darling brother is under investigation. The funny thing is, if it's true, it was incredibly stupid of him." 

Violetta's heart starts to pound. 

She doesn't let it show, of course. She'll have to call Agatha later, and Tarvek, and let them spread the good news. If it is the good news, but she can't imagine what else it would be, for Seffie to be so eager to spread it. "Investigation for what?" 

"Fraud." Her smile is thin. "It seems he decided to turn right around and sell the lost Bludtharst, and it seems he didn't want to sell it so badly after all." 

"Really." 

"Really." Seffie's other eyebrow goes up. "He must have had a fake made, and he somehow lost track of which was which and sent the fake to Wilkinson's for cleaning." 

"And they noticed right away, of course." 

"Well. Yes." A half-shrug, because Seffie knows art, but not the chemistry it would take to understand what happened there. "Colette used a lot of colorful words. Anyway - I'm sure he'll claim there was some conspiracy involved, but the thing was hanging in Grandmother's library for weeks, and nobody else who lives there has a _motive_. Unless you count Arctacz, and he doesn't have the brains." 

That's a distracting mental image, and Violetta wastes several seconds trying to shoehorn the memory of Grandmother's dour butler into the shape of someone twisty-minded enough to get an expert decorative forgery made purely to pin blame on Martellus, in retaliation for - What, exactly? Martellus might be an attempted murderer and all-around ass, but he's never rude to the staff. It would be beneath him. Absurd. Violetta realizes she's on the verge of giggling and chokes it back. Then she lets it out, because why not? Seffie wouldn't be talking about _gossip_ if she were seriously horrified. In fact she wouldn't be talking at all. She'd be warning her brother to get out or come up with some better story. 

Lucky for Violetta that Seffie doesn't actually like Martellus. She just hopes she can be there when Martellus notices that. The look on his face is going to be glorious. 

When they get to it. "I take it they're still getting the case together?"

"Yes. Colette didn't tell me, I didn't tell you, you know how it is." Seffie smiles. It's the soft smile of someone who has deep and lurking suspicions about what her cousin does for a living and who will never, ever, admit it, and not just because her girlfriend works for Interpol.

"Then obviously I didn't hear anything about it," Violetta says. "Thanks for not telling me. I think I'd better set up a news alert in case I need to buy a newspaper for my scrapbook." 

"I didn't know you kept a scrapbook." 

"Oh, for this I'll start one." 

Seffie rolls her eyes. "Still havn't forgiven him for the Malamute incident?" 

"I don't think anyone but Tweedle is stupid enough to think I was going to." 

They exchange perfunctory goodbyes, and then Violetta pulls out her phone and types a quick message to Agatha and Tarvek. Nothing traceable, nothing incriminating, some habits are just too ingrained even when there's no reason to think someone will ever look at her texts. _Want to meet up tonight? I'll bring the quail if Tarvek will cook it._

It's a small, vicious joy to send it. She might even get the actual quails, for all that it's a blatant code. Quails are nicely celebratory. 

And it makes sense to celebrate, now that they've cooked Tweedle's goose. 

\--

##### Tuesday, May 29th, 21:02

The inside of Tarvek's flat is familiar by now. The candlelight isn't, and it makes flickering shadows across the walls. Gil finds himself blinking, trying to work out what, exactly, his friend is trying to tell him. That this was the result of a power cut seems vanishingly unlikely. 

Tarvek claps him on the shoulder. "I thought the place needed some ambiance," he says with a grin. 

"Ambiance." Gil finds himself rubbing the bridge of his nose. "You're going to set something on fire."

"Already did. Don't they smell nice?" He's smirking. The last time he set up his flat so nicely before he had Gil to dinner it - 

Erm. 

Gil takes a deep breath. "This isn't you trying to be romantic, is it?"

That gets, gratifyingly, a gape of astonishment, and then a slow blush. "How stupid would I have to be to pull a stunt like that after listening to you rant at Dupree?"

"Well, forgive me for being a little paranoid," Gil snaps back, before he can stop himself. "Do you know how many people think _asexual_ just means _hasn't found the right man_?"

"No, and I'm grateful for that." Tarvek holds up his hands. "Will you give me the benefit of the doubt that I'm not one of them?"

Benefit of the doubt. Right. They seem to have settled into something like friendship, and the benefit of the doubt doesn't seem like too much to ask. "Alright." He lets out a breath. "But if you're serving chocolate fondue I reserve the right to storm out in a huff."

"Quiche." His grin is positively wicked. "And chocolate mousse, I'm afraid, but if the idea disturbs you I can switch it out for ice cream."

The kitchen is at least free of candles, and any light more ominous than the dim overhead glow and the blinkenlights of the coffee machine. Gil takes the chair facing the door, still feeling distantly ill at ease, and settles down with hands folded in his lap while Tarvek slices up the quiche and pours the wine and ladles tomato soup into bowls. He forces a smile as his old friend raises his glass. "To Cousin Tweedle," Tarvek says, "whose downfall I hope we'll still be laughing about in fifty years."

"To Tweedle." Gil clinks his glass against Tarvek's. "Thank you," he adds. "I know going after a relative of yours was risky - "

"But he deserved it. Did you ever tell your father you knew who'd ordered the hit?" 

Gil shakes his head. "I'm letting Dupree deal with that." 

"Sensible." Tarvek smirks over the rim of his wineglass.

Gil can't help but keep looking at him. Having Tarvek back in his life feels easy and comfortable and if they don't actually talk about why they didn't talk to each other for four years it's going to come back at the worst possible time, like a stone that works its way to the ball of your foot just when you're running for the train. 

He has to say it now, before he loses his nerve. Gil tightens his hand on his fork, as if having a fork close at hand would help. The animal instinct, to attack every problem, whether or not it's physical. He takes a deep breath. "Tarvek, I owe you an apology." 

Tarvek blinks a few times. "Whatever for?" 

"For never explaining why I stormed out, and for. Er. For getting you expelled from the Institute." 

Tarvek tilts his head, blinking a few times. Then, very suddenly, he smiles. "You didn't get me expelled from the Institute, Gilgamesh." 

"I reported you for academic fraud. I was convinced you were the one doing all those watercolors for other people's portfolios - " 

"Fortunately," Tarvek says, "the faculty didn't share your opinion. They investigated, concluded they couldn't prove anything, and I left without a stain on my character. Did you - oh. You must have come by after I left?" Gil nods, suddenly feeling miserable and eighteen again. Tarvek's next words should be bitter, from what they are, but he says them soft and quiet, like he's given up caring. Or like he's afraid Gil is about to cut and run. "Gil, I quit because my father got very sick and my sister needed me to come home and help her out, and I never came back because as soon as he died, it turned out the estate was a shell of paper and I could barely fleece his creditors enough to keep the art collection. The shreds of the art collection. What he hadn't sold off years ago." 

Wait, what? 

Couldn't prove anything? Shred of the collection? The idea is so big and awkward and keeps trying to drop into the familiar grooves of _of course he became a forger_ and grinding against the sudden imposition of the idea of Tarvek as an innocent party driven to desperate measures that it takes several futile turns around Gil's mind before he parses Tarvek's words enough to notice the other mystifying thing, and croaks out, "Sister?" 

"Yes. Anevka." Tarvek blinks. 

"You have a _sister_? How have I know you five years and never had any idea you had a sister?" 

"I didn't know _you_ had a sister until three months ago." 

Has it been that long? It has. March, April, May. And that's completely irrelevant. " _I_ didn't know I had a sister until three months ago. You've known your whole life. Uh. Presumably." 

"Yes, I've known my whole life." Tarvek's eyes are dancing with amusement. "If you want to continue to be amazed," he adds, with a wicked grin, "Agatha has an older brother. We met at their wedding." 

"Er." Gil blinks. "Am I going to run into them?" 

"Doubtful. Three and a half years ago they moved to Los Angeles, where they do something with virtual reality a mere old-fashioned dauber like me couldn't hope to understand." 

Slumping in his seat would be undignified. Letting his head fall to the table would be undignified and would get quiche all over his face. Gil settles for pinching the bridge of his nose. Some days he wonders if the world is populated by morons, and some days he wonders how he manages to get through his days without falling down an open manhole cover, and this is shaping up to be one of the latter. It had never occurred to him to _wonder_ how Agatha and Tarvek met. "And her name is Anevka. I think I need more quiche to process this." 

"Perfectly cromulent name," Tarvek serenely informs him, but then he tucks in as well and they start devouring the quiche in only mildly embarrassed silence. 

Eventually, around the lump that's taken up residence in his throat for no sensible reason, Gil says, "I still owe you an apology."

"Whatever for?"

"For falsely accusing you of academic fraud." 

For some reason this makes Tarvek blush again, as hard as he had when Gil accused him of being romantic. "Um." 

"What?" 

"I said they couldn't prove I did anything," Tarvek says. "I never said I didn't do it." 

Logically this bit of revelation should be easier to fit into his brain. It was what he'd assumed for the last four years. It isn't, but logically it should be. Gil gives up on dignity and throws his head back, covering his eyes with one hand. "Why am I not surprised," he says to the ceiling. 

He feels a hand pressing against the one he left on the table, giving it a comforting squeeze. "Because you know me," Tarvek says, and there's laughter in his voice. "But for some strange reason you stick around regardless." 

Gil ventures a look at Tarvek through his fingers. He's still blushing, but the bright-eyed, half-twisted smile, that had once made Gil think maybe he could _make_ romance work if he just put in an _effort_ , is back on his face. "I'm more surprised you put up with me after - last time." He's not going to talk about why he'd stormed out and refused to speak to Tarvek until it was too late and he was gone. He'd die of embarrassment. 

"You're a good friend." Tarvek raises his glass again, like he's toasting the abstract concept of friendship. "There aren't many people around I can really talk to." 

Oh. Loneliness. Well, that one Gil can relate to. He picks up his glass again, and clinks it on Tarvek's. They would have made a horrible mess of a couple, but he's glad, very glad, that Agatha made sure they met again. "To friendship, then." 

 

\--

##### Friday, June 1st, 18:13

Violetta squints at the design on the car's bonnet. It's impressive, she'll grant that. All those little swirly bits of flame. "Does Maxim know how many people are going to _remember_ this car?"

"I think that's the idea." Agatha bangs the bonnet; hanging up like it is, it at least resonates, even if the tone is messy. "It's not like he's going to run anyone over with it, right?"

From underneath the rest of the car a voice says, "I resent that implication." 

"We're not impugning you," Violetta calls back. "We're impugning your brother." 

"Oh, that's absolutely fine, I don't care about that at all, I'm just here out of the goodness of my heart." 

The truth is that Moloch is in Agatha's father's garage because it had come out, in the course of his friendly drink with Maxim and Oggie and Dimo who Agatha does not like Violetta to call the Three Stooges even if she giggles behind her hand every time Violetta does, that Moloch was Between Jobs. And Agatha attracts people in need like a friendly old lady with a can of tuna attracts cats. Adam had been hastily texted, and a few minutes later, Moloch informed he had a job now without anyone stopping to ask if he'd rather have a career change into something more restful, like bomb disposal. He'd kept showing up in the mornings, so either Moloch actually likes it here or he figures they want him as a hostage. 

Violetta crouches down to look under the car; she doesn't, to her eternal chagrin, have far to go. Moloch is tightening something with an adjustable spanner, grunting. "Hand me that screwdriver?" 

She hands it over, and straightens up again before he can ask her to come look at something. There's only one creeper, after all. 

The compressor is putting and the airbrush is hissing again as Agatha adds pale highlights to the pelican wings on the car bonnet. She works quickly, almost brushing her hand down the feathers without stopping, completely sure of herself. It's hypnotic. Violetta leans back on the half-disassembled car to watch. She'll never get tired of watching Agatha work. A perfect copy of an Old Master, an overdramatic flame-wreathed pelican on a car bonnet, an almost-Impressionistic scene right out of Mamma's on a busy night - Agatha paints them all with the same fierce intensity, too busy thinking to smile. 

She does have an unfortunately tendency to get out of bed in the middle of the night when she has a sudden inspiration, but artists will be artists. Violetta knew what she was getting into. 

There's a rattling noise as Moloch slides the creeper back out. "Okay," he announces to no one in particular, but loudly, because of the noise. "It shouldn't leak oil any more. I can't do anything about the squeaky brakes without replacing the pads completely and if I did that tonight it would make me late for dinner. How's the bonnet art going?" 

Agatha steps back, eyeing her work. "Should be ready for clear coat on Monday. You can replace the brakepads while it's drying." 

"You're working all weekend?" 

"At least most of Saturday, yeah." Agatha flips off the compressor. The sudden silence is almost startling. "But not any more today, because I'm taking my girlfriend out to dinner." 

She's so casual about saying that, too. And she's casual as she walks over, peeling off her gloves as she goes, and gives Violetta a swift, soft kiss on the lips. Violetta grins into it. "I bet it won't take all day," she says. "I bet you get the whole thing done by noon and we can go play football." 

"Maybe. Feathers are complicated." Agatha leans back, hands still on Violetta's hips. "It doesn't have to be photorealistic, but it should look a little better than a coat-of-arms, you know?" 

"I'm sure it'll be glorious." 

"Of course." Agatha blinks, as if that were too obvious to bear stating aloud. "That's why I'm the one painting it." 

\--

##### Friday, June 1st, 18:30

"Checkmate." 

"That implies a chess metaphor I'm not willing to commit to here." 

"Spoilsport." When Gil glances over his shoulder, Dupree is sticking her tongue out. She hefts her end of the wrapped _Atalanta at the Footrace_ they just got, at a very reasonable price indeed, from a woman who would just as soon her husband not know how much she paid for the second Bugatti. It doesn't count as cunning manipulation to work out when someone has money worries and offer them lots of money, in Gil's opinion. But it makes Dupree happy to think of it that way. She'd hummed to herself all the way back to the van to fetch the giant soft case. 

Gil is doing to be a little more reserved about this. Really he is. "It's more like a dice game."

"Know the odds?"

"If you want to put it that way." The van is parked under a drooping willow tree, and their feet crunch on the gravel as they walk over to it. Gil fishes for his keys one-handed as they walk. 

Not until the painting is secured to the side of the van and they're pulling back on to the street does Dupree tell him, "Sooooo. I heard Martellus von Blitzengaard is helping the police with their inquiries. By which I mean mouldering in a cell. Or he was this morning. You hear anything about that?"

"Maybe a little," Gil allows. 

"You _know_ anything about that?"

"Just because I have friends in the ... business doesn't mean I'm some kind of criminal mastermind." Gil snorts. He's not actually saying anything false, and somehow that fact makes it much easier to lie. "Much as I would have liked to catch him out at something."

"It's just weird. I mean, we _sold_ him that painting. At a public auction which we probably shouldn't have let him in the building for -"

"- except that he did pay. Handsomely." Gil sighs. "For the record, even if he somehow wiggles out if the charges, I do _not_ want you dropping in on him unannounced. Or doing anything untoward to his dogs as a proxy rev -" He squeaks in sudden pain as Dupree, without looking away from the road, slams her fist into his ribs. 

"I don't hurt animals unless they're trying to hurt me. Don't even joke about that."

"Right, sorry," Gil wheezes, hunching over in his seat. He tries to take deep breaths to settle himself, as Dupree plows up the approach to the M25 at a speed she certainly won't be able to keep up once she hits it. Could be worse. They know how to keep art secure in the back of the van. Nobody's going to die, even if it's hard for Gil's gibbering hindbrain to accept that. "I mean it, though. We got lucky."

They speed down the highway for a while in companionable silence.

"So what if he says we sold him a fake?" Dupree finally says, with a poisonous glare at the windshield. 

Gil shrugs. "We have an appraisal that says we sold him a genuine Bludtharst, and we have the in-its-setting picture you always insist on taking to prove we dropped off what was in the catalogue. Why are you worrying about this? Nobody's going to start some massive Wulfenbach-Gallery-sells-fakes exposé." Yet. In a year or two when Tarvek thinks the coast is clear, there will be risks. Tarvek had said, in a worst-case scenario, he'd admit to having shamelessly fleeced Gil. He'd said it with a smirk, as if acting like an ignoramus would be the worst thing Gil would be enduring in that situation. 

For some reason Dupree is tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. Not just pounding. Complicated patterns. "It's not _us_ I'm worried about. I'm afraid von Blitzengaard's going to weasel out of it somehow. I want his guts for garters and his bones for a hatrack and his skin for a nice new drum I can play while we dance on his grave."

The dashboard clock flickers. 6:43. 

Gil smiles out the window. It's going to be Game Night at Mamma's, and Agatha and Jorgi will be there, and they'll be the only ones who _know_ why he's buying rounds, but there will be other people who suspect. Oh yes. And tomorrow he's having lunch with Theo and his sister, and tomorrow night, Gil's staying in and colouring the Homartus Errant page he somehow got drawn all the way back on Wednesday, while his father goes out with Gkika. Possibly even out dancing. "We're playing the odds," he says. "We always are. But I think everything's going to be okay."

\--


End file.
